Ayhika trumped Shin 11-9, 7-11, 12-10, 7-11, 11-7 on Tuesday. (REUTERS)
India’s Asian Games doubles medallist Ayhika Mukherjee was back to her giant-killing ways in singles, beating World No 8 Shin Yubin of Korea in the team quarterfinals of Asian Championships table tennis at Astana, Kazakhstan, on Tuesday.
In a stunning blitz, Ayhika twice parried off Shin’s comebacks, to win 11-9, 7-11, 12-10, 7-11, 11-7.
Playing the first match of the tie against second-seeded team Korea, Ayhika was fielded to play the first singles – dealt the toughest player of the deck. Shin is a 20-year-old Korean whiz who reached the semifinals of Paris Olympics.
Korea have two main players, Shin and Jeon Jijhee who is World no.16, and the audacious paddler from Bengal was tasked with playing the first match so that Manika Batra could get a winnable matchup against Jeon to double the points.
India’s highest-ranked ranked Sreeja Akula, got the easier match as she was easing back into competition, after coming back from injury.
Ayhika would fight back from 2-8 down in the crucial third game to win it 12-10. Left out of the Olympics where Archana Kamath was in her place, Ayhika, who won Asiad doubles bronze with state mate Sutirtha Mukherjee, was determined to prove the fight is burning in her.
Ayhika was able to defend Shin’s forehand attacks with the really difficult backhand slices. What was impressive as always was her calmness under pressure. She stuck to her gameplan of attacking only when the opportunity arose.
She didn’t take any unnecessary risks but because of her anti-spin rubber, she plays her shots close to the net which sometimes draws her opponent into playing it long. That’s when she gets an opportunity to turn and unleash her forehand topspin.
When attacking with the backhand, she goes across, making the opponent stretch. A shorter player like Shin struggled with that.
Manika was at the table, with scores level at 2-2 in the best-of-5 format with all singles.
