Sreeja Akula (16th) and Manika Batra (18th) are India’s top-seeded players at the Paris 2024 Olympics table tennis tournament, commencing on July 27.
The International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) unveiled the seedings on Tuesday, with 67 players seeded in both the men’s and women’s singles competitions, and 16 teams seeded for each team event, according to Olympics.com.
Last month, Sreeja Akula achieved a career-high ranking of No. 24 in world table tennis, displacing Manika Batra as India’s top women’s singles player. The 25-year-old Sreeja, a two-time national champion, made history by winning the WTT Contender singles title in Lagos in June. She also clinched the doubles title partnering with Archana Kamath.
Meanwhile, Manika Batra, ranked 28th globally, is seeded just two places below Sreeja at the Paris 2024 Olympics. A former Commonwealth Games champion, Manika reached the quarterfinals of the Saudi Smash women’s singles in May, becoming the first Indian singles table tennis player to advance to the last eight of a WTT Grand Smash event. Paris 2024 marks her third consecutive Olympic appearance.
Sharath Kamal is poised for his fifth Olympic outing. Seeded 24th at Paris 2024, the two-time Commonwealth Games men’s singles champion achieved his best Olympic result to date by reaching the third round at Tokyo 2020.
National champion Harmeet Desai, ranked 86th globally in men’s singles, is seeded 49th and will make his Olympic debut. India will debut in the team table tennis events at the upcoming Olympics, with the four singles players joined by Manav Thakkar (men’s team) and Archana Kamath (women’s team).
Introduced at Beijing 2008, both the men’s and women’s team events will feature the Indian teams seeded 14th and 11th respectively at Paris 2024.
All six Indian table tennis players qualified for Paris 2024 based on their world rankings. The release clarified that there will be no Indian representation in the mixed doubles tournament.
Table tennis at the Paris 2024 Olympics will take place from July 27 to August 10 at the South Paris Arena, featuring competitions in men’s singles, women’s singles, mixed doubles, men’s team, and women’s team events.
(ANI)
