Paris: Sreeja Akula rallied to enter the pre-quarterfinals after a hard-fought 4-2 win over Singapore's Jian Zeng in while it was the end of the road for Manika Batra in women's singles at the Paris Olympics here on Wednesday.
On her 26th birthday, Sreeja won 9-11, 12-10, 11-4, 11-5, 10-12, 12-10 .
She lost the opening game but fought back strongly to emerge as the winner in the contest, which lasted 51 minutes.
Manika, however, went down to Japan's Miu Hirano 1-4 in a women's singles round of 16 match. Thwe 18th seed Manika lost to the eighth seed Hirano 6-11, 9-11, 14-12, 8-11, 6-11.
Sreeja will take on China's world No. 1 Sun Yingsha in the pre-quarterfinals.
Having lost the first hame, Sreeja rode her luck to win the second and restore parity. She was a bit fortunate to take the second game as she made quite a number of errors and squandered a three-point lead to allow Zeng claw back into the game and take it to tie-breakers.
A confident Seeja produced a dominant show to easily pocket the third game and place herself in a strong position to advance to the next round.
The Indian No. 1 continued in the same vein in the fourth game and won it without much difficulty. The player from Singapore offered some resistance and bagged the fifth game.
But, Sreeja held her nerve to seal the deal in her favour in the sixth game.
Last month, Sreeja achieved a career-high world ranking of No. 24, displacing Manika as India's top women's singles player.
Sreeja, a two-time national champion, made history by winning the WTT Contender singles title in Lagos in June.
At the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, she won the gold medal in the mixed doubles event with Sharath Kamal.
