Tournaments

27 Aug 2021

Bronze medal at the 2017 Asian Championships, gold in 2020 in Egypt, on the afternoon of Friday 27th August, India’s Bhavinaben Patel caused one of the biggest, if not the biggest upset to date at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games.

Competing in women’s singles class 4, currently listed at no.12 in the world order, she beat Serbia’s Borislava Peric Rankovic, the defending champion, the gold medallist in Rio de Janeiro.

by Ian Marshall

Furthermore, she won in style, she prevailed in straight games (11-5, 11-6, 11-7).

“It is just amazing for me, I was so concentrated, focused on every point. We made a plan before the match, and I was able to implement the tactics that we prepared. I gave one hundred per cent effort; this is what you must do, it is the Paralympic Games.” Bhavinaben Patel

The plan worked, the designer, her coach and husband!

Disappointment for Serbia and there was more; Nada Matic who had won bronze in Rio de Janeiro, was beaten by Zhou Yu (11-4, 11-7, 8-11, 11-9).

Success for Zhou You, in the remaining quarter-final duels, there were also wins for Chinese national team colleagues, Zhang Miao, the silver medallist in Rio de Janeiro and in addition success for Gu Xiaodan.

Zhang Miao beat Germany’s Sandra Mikolaschek in four games (11-2, 11-8, 5-11, 11-9), by a similar margin, Guo Xiaodan ended the hopes of Chinese Taipei’s Li Pi-China (10-12, 11-7, 11-7, 11-2).

At the semi-final stage Zhou You meets Guo Xiaodan, Bhavinaben Patel opposes Zhang Miao.

Both the semi-finals and final will be played on Saturday 28th August; there is no play-off match for third place; in all events two bronze medals will be awarded.

A full day of medal matches beckons, the tension of the first three days of action undoubtedly set to be repeated.

 

General News Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games
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