Indian women paddlers Mouma Das and Manika Batra faced early elimination from the Rio Olympics after losing their preliminary round singles matches to higher-ranked rivals in the Table Tennis competition in Rio de Janeiro on Saturday.
World no 150 Mouma’s challenge was lukewarm and short-lived as the Indian, in her second Olympics, lost to world No 58 Daniela Dodean Monteiro of Romania 2-11, 7-11, 7-11, 3-11.
For LIVE coverage: Live Rio 2016: India beat Ireland 3-2, Leander Paes-Rohan Bopanna ousted
Debutant Manika, on the other hand, put up a good fight before going down to her 60th-ranked Polish rival Katarzyna Franc-Grzybowska 2-4 (12-10 6-11 12-14 11-8 4-11 12-14 in 48 minutes in another preliminary round clash.
In the men’s singles, Sharath Kamal and Soumyajit Ghosh will play their first round matches later in the day.
It is the first time that four Indian paddlers had qualified for the Summer Games.