The 23-times Grand Slam champion looked a completely different player from the person who smashed her way into the semi-finals of the doubles with Caroline Wozniacki on Wednesday but managed to do just enough to beat the 86th-ranked McHale.
With the jailed Ajay Singh Chautala on his way out after completing three terms, former Indian Administrative Service officer PC Chaturvedi is tipped to become the new president of the Table Tennis Federation of India when the body holds its Annual General Meeting on March 17.
Ace paddler Sharath Kamal, who clinched a historic mixed doubles bronze with Manika Batra at the Asian Games last year, feels the road to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics seems difficult in the newly-introduced category, but once the spot is booked, a medal win is possible.
The Multi Disciplinary Steering Committee of the sports ministry has approved the preparatory tournaments for London-bound paddlers and judokas ahead of the upcoming Olympic Games.
India's Mouma Das bagged a silver medal in the mixed doubles event while entering the semi-finals of the singles and doubles competition, to round off a sparkling day for the hosts at the 19th Commonwealth Table Tennis Championships in New Delhi.
The Indian men's team suffered a 0-3 thrashing from a much superior Singapore and had to settle for the silver medal at the 19th Commonwealth Table Tennis Championships, in New Delhi, on Wednesday.
Manika Batra's sensational run at the Commonwealth Games fetched her another medal on Sunday. Teaming up with Sathiyan Gnanasekaran she bagged the mixed doubles bronze, thereby winning a medal in every event she competed in at the Gold Coast Games .
India's table tennis star Manika Batra alleged that national coach Soumyadeep Roy asked her to throw a match during the Olympic qualifiers in March and that was the main reason she refused his help during the Tokyo Games.
Achanta Sharatha Kamal scored a crushing straight game win over CRSB's Eric Fernandez to help PSPB enter the men's final of the All India Inter Institutional Table Tennis Championships, in Kolkata on Thursday.
Parupalli Kashyap was the lone bright spot on a disappointing day for India at the London Olympic Games, on Saturday.
With just a month left for the London Games, Olympic-bound Indian paddlers Soumyajit Ghosh and Ankita Das will leave for Zhengding, China on Sunday for a 16-day long training camp.
While national champion Anthony Amalraj defeated world number 49 Emmanuel Lebesson of France, Sharath Kamal got the better of Slovakian Jan Zibrat 4-2, in Doha on Thursday.
Ace Indian paddler Achantha Sharath Kamal lost to Germany's Timo Boll 1-4 in the second round to crash out of the World Table Tennis Championships in Paris.
India's Mouma Das, K Shamini and Madhurika Patkar have entered the main draw of the women's singles event while Soumyajit Ghosh too made the cut in the men's competition at the World Table Tennis Championships in Paris.
Neha Aggarwal, who was touted as one of the most promising talents in table tennis when she earned a berth in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, could not quite lived up to the expectations but the Delhi girl said that she was slowly getting her rhythm back.
It was a good beginning for the Indian paddlers in the Commonwealth Table Tennis Championships, as both the women's and men's team advanced to the second round of the tournament with minimum fuss in New Delhi.
The committee also picked 19 sportspersons for the Arjuna Award, including the likes of cricketers Ravindra Jadeja and Poonam Yadav, track and field stars Tejinder Pal Singh Toor, Mohammed Anas and Swapna Barman.
Indian paddlers Achanta Sharath Kamal and K Shamini have failed to qualify for the knockout stages of the 26th Table Tennis Asian Cup, being played at the Queen Elizabeth Stadium in Hong Kong.
Women formed the core of India's stupendous day four at the 21st Commonwealth Games where a 16-year-old Manu Bhaker delivered a record-shattering shooting gold medal and the table tennis team shocked fancied defending champions Singapore to clinch the top honours for the first time in the event.
Swede Anders Johansson's decision to turn down the offer of coaching the Indian table tennis team is set to affect the country's paddlers' preparation for the upcoming international tournaments and more importantly the 2012 London Olympics.
Indian women paddlers stunned fancied Thailand 3-0, while their male counterparts edged past Iran 3-2 to enter the Asian Table Tennis Championship quarterfinals in Macau.
'In one case, she wasn't even there in the scene, but she just kept watching it and cheering me on.'
China moved one step away from a second successive clean sweep of Olympic table tennis golds when their women marched to a 3-0 victory over a young Japanese team at the London Games on Tuesday.
Ace Indian paddler Sharath Kamal on Saturday advanced to the second round of the ITTF Kuwait Open Super Series table tennis tournament after a 4-2 victory over Hampus Soderlund of Sweden in Kuwait City.
India's young duo of Soumyajit Ghosh and Ankita Das are hoping to make waves at their first Olympics, but admitted finding it tough to keep their excitement in check as they live their dream of performing at the London Games.
India's foreign table tennis coach Leszek Kucharski feels Olympic-bound paddlers Soumyajit Ghosh and Ankita Das can spring a few surprises but they are not among the favourites to win a medal in the London Games.
Indian junior paddlers on Monday made a sweep of the team titles in all the four categories of boys and girls, in the ongoing 12th SAF Junior Table Tennis Championships held at the Jawaharlal Nehru Sports Complex indoor stadium in Shillong.
The Indian challenge at the Volkswagen 2012 World Junior table tennis championships came to an end when Ayhika Mukerjee and Suthirtha Mukherjee lost their respective pre-quarterfinal matches in Hyderabad on Saturday.
Star Indian paddler Achanta Sharath Kamal and national champion Anthony Amalraj failed to book a berth for the upcoming London Games after crashing out of the World Olympic Qualification Table Tennis Tournament in Doha, Qatar.
Bengal paddlers Soumyajit Ghosh and Ankita Das booked their London Olympics berths on the concluding day of the Asian Olympic Qualification Table Tennis Tournament in Hong Kong, but it was a real heartbreak for top paddler Achanta Sharath Kamal.
Indian badminton team's chief coach Pullela Gopichand, multiple world title holder cueist Pankaj Advani, former hockey captain Dhanraj Pillay were some of the prominent names who made financial contribution in country's fight against coronavirus pandemic.
Swastika's father Sandeep, who is also her coach-cum-training partner, has been rendered jobless for more than four months and is finding it difficult to pay the rent for the house they are staying in at Navi Mumbai.
The Achanta Sharath Kamal-Poulomi Ghatak and Soumyadeep Roy-Mouma Das pairs went down after a fine showing in the table tennis event at the Asian Games.
Hyderabad will host the World Table Tennis Championship scheduled in 2013, TTFI general secretary Dhanraj Choudhary said on Sunday.
In the absence of big names of Indian table tennis, the onus will be on the teenaged duo of Soumyajit Ghosh and Ankita Das to deliver the goods at the London Olympics.
India's representation in the singles events of the World Table Tennis Championship was reduced to just four players, three of them women, after six others failed to qualify for the main draw.
Soumyajit Ghosh's qualification for the London Olympics has taken everyone by surprise. But the Siliguri paddler knows that it will not be a stroll in the park when it comes down to facing European and Chinese giants in London.
Leander Paes is just three shy of completing a century of Grand Slam appearances but is now unsure whether uncertainty caused by coronavirus pandemic will allow him to complete the coveted milestone or for that matter compete at the next year's Tokyo Olympics. Paes had announced that 2020 would be his last season as a professional player but his plan to bid adieu on a high with a record eight appearance at the Olympics, was stalled by the COVID-19 outbreak, which has wrecked the sporting calendar around the world.
Paralympic gold-winners Avani Lekhara, Sumit Antil, Pramod Bhagat, Krishna Nagar, Manish Narwal were also given the Khel Ratna at a dazzling awards ceremony on Saturday.
