Manika Batra and Gnanasekaran Sathiyan are the first Indian mixed doubles pair to make history . The duo made it to the final of the WTT Contender race in Nova Gorica, Slovenia, and achieved this milestone .
Lausanne (Switzerland), November 8: Manika Batra and Gnanasekaran Sathiyan, the first Indian mixed doubles pair to make history when they became the top five of the International Table Tennis Federation's (ITTF) World Rankings on Tuesday.The duo made it to the final of the WTT Contender race in Nova Gorica, Slovenia, and achieved this milestone.According to Olympics.com, they lost by 0-3 to Lim Jonghoon and Shin Yubin in the final.They climbed to the top of the standings after receiving 280 rating points for their performances in the tournament, and with this, they defeated Hong Kong's Tokyo 2020 bronze medalist Doo Hoi Kem and her partner, Wong Chun-ting, a two-time world championship bronze medalist, to claim the top spot.
They became the first Indian mixed doubles pair to reach the top 15 of the world rankings later that year.They rose to the top ten in March this year after this.They put in a good showing to advance to the final of WTT Contender Doha, where they were defeated by the world number one pair of Lin Yun-Ju and Cheng I-Ching of Chinese Taipei.In his social media post, Sathiyan said it was indeed a great achievement towards reaching the pinnacle and winning the Olympic medal.Both are also India's top-ranked singles players, with Batra being the world number 44 and Sathiyan the Sharath Kamal, the 2022 Commonwealth Games champion, is on the 44th place.