With the narrowest of margins, the Indian women’s team was beaten by Japan in the semifinal of the Asian TT Championships in Astana on Wednesday. The 1-3 final scoreline hardly told the real story as in two of the three matches India lost, it could’ve gone either way.
It was superstar Manika Batra who won India’s lone match, beating Japan’s World No. 17 Satsuki Odo in straight games to put India back into the match after Ayhika Mukherjee lost the opening encounter 3-2 (8-11, 11-9, 8-11, 13-11, 7-11) to Japan’s top player, World No. 7 Miwa Harimoto.
Ayhika had played brilliantly in the quarterfinal against Korea, where she beat World No. 8 Shin Yubin and World No. 16 Jeon Jihee to give the Indian women their first-ever medal at the Asian Championships. She raised the stakes for herself with those wins and the Indian team was counting on her to give them a good start against World No. 2 Japan.
She didn’t disappoint and even led the final game 6-3 before she lost seven straight points to hand Japan the first match of the tie.
In a surprising decision, India benched their highest-ranked player, World No. 26 Sreeja Akula, choosing to go with World No. 89 Sutirtha Mukherjee instead. Maybe the fact that Sreeja is just back from a 6-week injury layoff had something to do with the decision but on such a big stage, it was rather unnecessary especially since Sreeja, with her pimpled rubber, has the knack for beating top players.
Sutirtha lost her match against Mima Ito in straight games and it was down to Manika to keep India in the game in her second rubber.
Facing Harimoto, Manika tried varying attacks but the Japanese’s return attack was just too good for the Indian to defend. She managed to win a game, but it was all she could win as she lost the match 1-3 (3-11, 11-6, 2-11, 3-11) to send Japan into the final.