Tokyo: Bhavina Patel, an Indian table tennis player, on August 29, won a historic silver medal in her first Paralympic Games after going down 0-3 to world number one Chinese paddler Ying Zhou in the women’s singles class 4 final.
Patel’s, 34, impressive run at the Games came to an end with a 7-11 5-11 6-11 loss to a two-time gold medalist, Zhou, in the women’s singles summit match, which lasted 19 minutes. Earlier in the week, Patel had lost to Zhou in her first group stage match.
Despite having five Paralympic medals to her name, including gold medals in singles at Beijing and London, Patel struggled to execute her strategy. Patel, who was diagnosed with polio when she was a month old, beat world no 3 Miao Zhang of China 7-11 11-7 11-4 9-11 11-8 in the semifinals on Saturday.
In the quarterfinal on Friday, Patel defeated 2016 Rio Paralympic gold medalist and world number two Borislava Peric Rankovic of Serbia to claim a medal and script history.
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