Indian table tennis player Bhavinaben Patel signed off with a historic silver medal in her maiden Paralympic Games after going down to world No. 1 Chinese paddler Ying Zhou in the women’s singles Class 4 final, in Tokyo, on Sunday.
The 34-year-old Patel’s impressive run at the Games ended with a 7-11, 5-11, 6-11 loss to Zhou, a two-time gold medallist, in the summit clash, which lasted 19 minutes.
Patel had lost to Zhou in her first group stage match earlier in the week.
This is India’s firt medal at the ongoing Games.
Deepa Malik, the current president of Paralympic Committee of India (PCI), was the first Indian woman to win a medal in the Paralympic Games when she had claimed a silver in shotput at Rio five years back.
Up against an opponent who has five Paralympic medals to her name, including gold medals in singles at Beijing and London, Patel struggled as she couldn’t execute her strategy.
The Indian, who was diagnosed with polio when she was 12 months old, had defeated world No. 3 Miao Zhang of China 7-11, 11-7, 11-4, 9-11, 11-8 in the semi-finals on Saturday.
In the quarter-finals on Friday, she defeated 2016 Rio Paralympics gold medallist and world No. 2 Borislava Peric Rankovic of Serbia.
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