New Delhi: In a 12 months the place she grew to become the primary Indian paddler to achieve Spherical of 16 on the Olympics, beat a former world champion and world No.2 en route a run to her maiden quarter-finals at Saudi Smash, and entered historical past books as the primary Indian desk tennis participant to achieve the ultimate eight in a WTT Champions occasion, Manika Batra is fairly modest in her appraisal.
Manika Batra reached the third spherical in Paris Olympics. (WTT)
“It’s been quite a balanced year,” she says. “I have had some good wins and some bad losses. I would say reaching the third round at Paris Olympics was a highlight and I really savoured the win over world No.2 Wang Manyu. But I am certainly not done or satisfied. I always aim higher.”
Which means Batra has set her sights on a top-15 place for subsequent 12 months. At the moment ranked twenty fifth, two locations behind Sreeja Akula who’s the best-placed Indian lady on the planet, the 29-year-old feels she has the sport to constantly beat the world’s finest.
“Top-15 is a realistic target considering the belief and game I have. This year has given me the confidence to consistently beat higher-ranked players. I am excited to enter the new Olympic cycle in this mindspace,” Batra, who earlier this 12 months grew to become the primary Indian lady paddler to interrupt into the top-25, says.
Publish Paris, whereas most athletes determined to take a break from coaching to recalibrate their season, Batra obtained sick of dwelling comforts fairly quickly. “I had planned to spend some time with my family, but I began feeling the itch to return to training after a week. I really enjoy my training and am not a big believer in taking long breaks since they disrupt the rhythm. If you want to beat the top-10 players, you have to be very disciplined with your physical, mental, and technical training.”
A major profession transfer after the Olympics was her resolution to half methods with G Sathiyan after three years of taking part in collectively in blended doubles. Batra will now accomplice world No.60 Manav Thakkar within the new season. The duo had their first worldwide outing on the Asian Championships in October the place they misplaced their second-round match to Singapore’s Ser Lin Qian and Yew En Koen Pang.
“I don’t think we had enough practice as a pair going into that tournament,” Batra recalled. “I haven’t had the time and opportunity to fully understand Manav’s game yet but if we are to win medals and beat good pairs, we’ll have to put in a lot of practice hours together.”
“We couldn’t go far at the Asian Championships but I realised we were able to feed balls to each other when required. So, that’s a good start, but we will have to find a way to train together,” added Batra who trains in Hyderabad and Mumbai. Thakkar’s coaching, in the meantime, is unfold throughout Chennai, Surat, and Germany.
By way of her personal recreation, Batra’s focus within the coming season will probably be to check some technical tweaks, one thing she couldn’t do that 12 months owing to the busy season. Alongside together with her coach Aman Balgu, Batra plans to reassess her recreation after they resume coaching this month.
“Me and my coach Aman had identified some areas but we didn’t have enough time to train because of back-to-back events in 2024. I plan to go back to the drawing board and try those little technical changes. We also have the World Championships next year and one of my targets will be to bring home a medal,” she says.
Whereas Batra has determined to offer the continuing blended crew World Cup in Chengdu a miss, she will probably be a part of Ma Lengthy-led Staff Asian as the only Indian participant on the Waldner’s Cup later this month (December 13-15). The event, which honours the legacy of desk tennis legend Jan-Ove Waldner, will probably be held in Oslo, Norway, and can characteristic a showdown between the best gamers from Asia and the world.