India's table tennis star Manika Batra made a stunning comeback against world number 32 Margaryta Pesotska to reach the women's singles third round but G Sathiyan suffered a shock loss on his Olympic debut in the men's singles competition at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics on Sunday.
Manika, ranked 62, made a remarkable comeback after losing the first two games to prevail 4-11, 4-11, 11-7, 12-10, 8-11, 11-5, 11-7 in a second round match that lasted 57 minutes. She meets Austria's Sofia Polcanova on Monday for a place in the round of 16. If Manika manages another upset, it will be a significant achievement for the Indian in her second Olympics.
After losing the first two games, she used the pimple rubber to good effect thereafter and combined it with a more offensive approach. The match saw long rallies, slow as well as fast ones, as Manika twiddled with her bat to find forehand and backhand winners.
The sixth game which she won after trailing 2-5 turned the tide in her favour. The timeout worked as she reeled off nine points in a row to give herself five game points before levelling the match at 3-3.
With momentum in her side, Manika controlled the deciding game and sealed the match with a forehand cross court winner.
Earlier, world number 38, and 26th seed Sathiyan had a commanding 3-1 lead world number 94 Hong Kong's Siu Hang Lam in his second round match after getting a first round bye, but lost four games in a row to lose 3-4.
"It is heartbreaking but I will come back stronger. I was playing really well initially. I was aggressive and serving well but after the fourth game he started to slow down the pace and started receiving better," Sathian told PTI.
"The rallies got longer and I started to feel the pressure. I was a little bit passive from the fifth game onwards. I should have continued being aggressive despite his variation in pace. I just made the error of playing it safe.
"Credit to him also. He did not make much mistakes in the last two games," Sathiyan added.
The first game was tight but the Hong Kong player pulled away from 6-6 with his forehand at work.
Sathiyan switched gears after the opening game, putting up a stout defence to level the match when Lam hit a return out on a ferocious forehand.
Sathiyan raced to a 5-1 lead in the third game and kept going strong as Lam's game fell apart and soon Sathiyan had a 2-1 lead.
However, Lam came back strongly by taking the next two games. Sathiyan saved two game points in the sixth game to keep Lam under pressure but made an error on third game point.
In the deciding game, Lam opened up a 5-2 lead with crushing forehand winner after a time out.
Lam completed the upset win when Sathiyan made a backhand error.