India stun Singapore to win the gold in women’s table tennis event at Gold Coast CWG 2018. The Manika Batra led side thumped Singapore 3-1 in the gold medal match. With this win, the team bettered their previous-best performance at the Commonwealth Games. They had earlier won silver at New Delhi in 2010, when they also faced Singapore in the final. Since the introduction of the sport in the game since 2002, Singapore had not lost a single women’s team final.
In the opening singles tie, World No. 58 Manika gave a tough competition to World No. 4 Feng, and pulled off the upset of the tournament to win by 11-8, 8-11, 7-11, 11-9, 11-7, to give India an early lead. In the next singles tie, Madhurika Patkar failed to carry on with the winning momentum, losing 11-13, 2-11, 6-11 to Yu to level the tie at 1-1.
Mouma Das and Patkar faced the pairing of Yu and Yihan Zhou. They finished the match in four games, winning 11-7, 11-6, 8-11, 11-7.
Batra was again back in the fray to face Zhou in the 4th tie. The Delhi-born girl was again relentless and sealed the historic gold for India, winning 11-7, 11-4, 11-7.
Earlier in the day, Team England defeated Australia 3-1 in the bronze medal match to earn the third spot.
Indian men’s team will be in action on Monday in their semi final clash against Singapore, and certainly another medal prospect for India.
