Manika Batra, India’s second-highest-ranked player in the ITTF rankings was left out of the main squad for the upcoming Asian Games. The exclusion came after she failed to meet the criteria set by TTFI (Table Tennis Federation of India).
She has multiple Commonwealth Games medals to her name and was named among the reserve players for the event which will take place from September 19th to October 4th at Aichi-Nagoya in Japan.
Players were selected based on the 2023 policy by TTFI, which allocates 50 per cent importance to national rankings and 40 per cent to international rankings, while the remaining 10 per cent is allocated to the selection committee’s discretion. Due to this rule, Batra’s absence from national tournaments affected her national ranking and hence she wasn’t selected.
Ayhika Mukherjee, a key member of India’s bronze medal-winning women’s team at the 2023 Asian Games also missed out on the selection.
Sreeja Akula will lead the women’s team at the Games, along with Yashaswini Ghorpade, Diya Chitale, Sutirtha Mukherjee, and Syndrela Das are a part of the team.
The table tennis competition will be held from September 20th to 28th, at the 2026 Asian Games.
Indian Table Tennis Squad:
Women: Sreeja Akula, Yashaswini Ghorpade, Diya Chitale, Sutirtha Mukherjee, Syndrela Das
Men: G. Sathiyan, Manav Thakkar, Manush Shah, Payas Jain, Harmeet Desai
Reserves: Manika Batra, Swastika Ghosh, Ankur Bhattacharjee, Ronit Bhanja
