Stuck indoors and without a training partner during India's coronavirus lockdown, the country's top table tennis player Sathiyan Gnanasekaran says he is staying sharp by practising with a robot. The governing International Table Tennis Federation has suspended all of its events and activities until June 30 and the three-week lockdown in force in India has disrupted the daily routines of athletes like Sathiyan.
Manika said she has been working on introducing variations in her style of play.
Manika, the highest ranked Indian in women's singles, got off to a flying start early in the first session, defeating 152nd ranked Englishwoman Ho Tin-Tin 3-0 (11-4,11-8,11-5).
They have also taken help from Soumyadeep Roy and Kamlesh Mehta to shortlist the needy ones from across the country.
While Payas lost his semifinal match to China's Peng Xiang, Suhana too went down fighting against top-seeded Egyptian Hana Goda.
In a strange incident, a man who had gone missing some 33 years ago returned to his home in Rajasthan's Alwar much to the astonishment of his family who had stopped believing that he could be alive and had even got a death certificate made for him.
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 .
Achanta Sharath Kamal said the ongoing protest by the wrestlers has shown the importance of an athletes' body in all National Sports Federations.
Commonwealth Games gold medalist Manika Batra said reading books, meditation, and watching TV series are some of the activities which is helping her spend time during the coronavirus enforced nationwide lockdown. The Indian table tennis star also stressed the importance of working on physical fitness and staying positive as the country continues to reel under the pandemic.
The postponement of Tokyo Olympics to next year due to the coronavirus pandemic has given India's table tennis squad more time to prepare and given the current scenario, the sport's governing body TTFI is looking to fill the head coach's position locally rather than hiring a foreign coach. The head coach position has been lying vacant since the 2018 Asian Games due to multiple factors.
The statue depicts Zlatan Ibrahimovic celebrating in his own trademark style, with arms outstretched.
At almost 57, Ni Xialian has competed in the 2000, 2008, 2012 and 2016 Olympics, achieving her best result when, aged 37, she reached the last 16 in Sydney. She hopes Tokyo 2020 will go ahead.
The reigning world champion duo of Chen Meng and Wang Yidi gasped in surprise seeing the backhand return of Ayhika Mukherjee, who, in part, engineered India's biggest triumph of the Asian Games thus far.
'I would like to thank the Government, the Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI) and most importantly, my family, who has been there for me and motivated me along this journey'
The Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI) will make a fresh attempt to organise a training camp at the end of June but top players including Sharath Kamal and G Sathiyan are not ready to travel anytime soon as the situation remains "unsafe".
The government denied granting permission to serve liquor at wedding halls, even as the opposition parties slammed the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam's move to dilute the total prohibition policy.
"I'm sure BCCI will sort this out," said Ganguly
While Indian table tennis took giant strides in the year, a star too was born with Manika Batra pocketing as many as four medals including two historic gold medals at the 2018 Commonwealth Games.
The domination of home paddlers could be gauged from the fact that all finals on Monday featured only the Indians.
Men could extend their reign for the second successive time after annexing the title in the previous edition at Surat in 2015. The Indian men had won their first crown in Kuala Lumpur in 2004.
Sathiyan rose four spots to be placed 24th in the latest ITTF rankings, following his impressive sixth place finish in the Asia Cup in Yokohama earlier this month. Last week, he was the sole Indian to reach the round of 32 in the World Championships in Hungary.
Indian table tennis men's team settled for a historic bronze medal after losing 0-3 to South Korea in a lop-sided semifinal at the 18th Asian Games, in Jakarta, on Tuesday.
'I am very happy to get national recognition of my long and hard work.'
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.
Manika Batra and Mouma Das made history by becoming the first Indian pair to reach the quarter-finals of the World Table Tennis Championships in Dusseldorf, on Thursday.
Manika Batra, on Saturday, won a first ever women's singles table tennis gold for India at the CWG
Sheep eyeball juice, frog smoothies and fruit bat soup... Which one do you find yucky?
Soumyadeep Roy quelled a stiff challenge from Singapore's Xiaoli Cai to enter the men's singles semi-finals in the Commonwealth Games' table tennis competition on Tuesday. He will take on world No 17 Gao Ning, who beat India's A Amalraj 4-1 in other match.
The government on Wednesday reconstituted the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM) under existing chairman Bibek Debroy, for a period of two years. V Anantha Nageswaran has been dropped, Rakesh Mohan (former deputy governor of RBI), Poonam Gupta (director general of NCAER) and TT Ram Mohan (professor, IIM Ahmedabad) have been appointed as part-time members of the reconstituted EAC-PM. The other part-time members of the Council include Sajid Chenoy, Neelkanth Mishra and Nilesh Shah.
India's men paddlers entered the final of the team championship at the 19th Commonwealth Championships, beating England, while the women went down fighting to the same opponents, in the semi-finals, in Delhi, on Tuesday. While the men prevailed 3-2, the women's team lost 2-3 and had to settle for the bronze medal.
India's G Sathiyan continued his good show and qualified for the main draw of the men's singles event at the World Table Tennis Championships, in Suzhou, China.
Tennis star Sania Mirza arrived at the Games Village of the Rio Olympics and so did the table tennis squad while the Indian hockey team won its practice match against Spain.
British scientist Michael Houghton and American scientists Harvey J Alter and Charles M Rice were on Monday jointly awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Medicine.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday again took a digital tablet wrapped in a traditional 'bahi-khata' style pouch as she headed for Parliament to present Union Budget 2023-24 in a paperless format just like the previous two years. She posed for the traditional 'briefcase' picture outside her office along with her team of officials before heading to meet the President. She, however, was holding a tablet instead of a briefcase to present the Budget in a digital format.
An unprecedented 11 athletes were selected for the country's highest sporting honour.
China completed a clean sweep of all five titles at the World Table Tennis Championships in Yokahama on Tuesday, with world number ones Wang Hao and Zhang Yining claiming the men's and women's singles crowns. The Chinese team dominated the event -- held every two years -- for the third straight time, with all-Chinese finals in each discipline.
Chelsea struggled to deal with Barca's punishing press and they went 2-0 behind in the 14th minute
Mumbai and its adjoining areas were lashed by heavy showers on Tuesday, causing water-logging at a number of places, including railway tracks, which slowed the movement of trains and vehicles on roads.
Young Soumyajit Ghosh's maiden appearance at the Olympics was a memorable one as he advanced to the second round of the table tennis event after Ankita Das bowed out on Saturday.
Incessant showers lashed Mumbai and its neighbouring areas on Wednesday morning, leading to flooding in many low-lying areas and traffic snarls on roads, officials said.
