Tokyo Paralympics: Paddler Bhavina Patel wins historic silver medal

Paddler Bhavina Patel opened the medal tally for India at the Tokyo Paralympics Games, winning a historic silver medal in the women’s individual Class 4 Table Tennis on Sunday. The Indian went down to China’s World No.1 Zhou Ying in straight games 7-11, 7-11, 6-11 in 19 minutes. Bhavina had lost to Ying in her opening match of the Games before beating higher ranked opponents to reach the final. This is India’s first medal in Table Tennis, fifth Silver at the Paralympic Games.

Bhavina lost the first game 7-11 to the London Games Gold medalist in just six minutes and even though showed some fight in the second the Chinese paddler showed her class to take a 2-0 lead.

The Chinese had come out with a clear gameplan as she avoided Bhavina’s forehand as much as possible and employed the long balls on the table, stifling the Indian’s reach.

In the third game, Ying had four gold medal points and claimed her third singles gold medal at the Paralympic Games with a smash to the body to close out 6-11.

On Saturday, the Ahmedabad-born paddler had beaten World No.3 Zhang Miao 7-11, 11-7, 11-4, 9-11, 11-8 in 34 minutes to create history and clinch a place in the final.

The 34-year-old was making her Paralympic debut lost the opening match to the gold medalist before making a strong recovery to claim the next game and became the first Indian para-TT player to reach the pre-quarterfinals on Thursday.

In the round of 16, Bhavina overcame Joyce de Oliveira. Meanwhile, in the last-8 she defeated the 2016 Rio Paralympics gold medalist and World No.2 Barislava Peric Rankovic of Serbia to assure a medal for India.