Paris Olympics: Sreeja beats Swedish paddler Christina Kallberg in Table Tennis women's singles opener

Paris, July 28 (IANS) India's Sreeja Akula marked her Olympics debut with an emphatic 4-0 (11-4, 11-9, 11-7, 11-8) victory over Swedish opponent Christina Kallberg in the Tabke Tennis women’s singles Round-of-64 here on Sunday at .

Sreeja started the game as she wanted to go on and took an early 8-1 lead, before capping off with an 11-4 victory in the first game.

Christina tried to make a comeback in the second game which was very intricately poised at 9-9 before the World No. 25 Indian paddler nudged ahead to seal the second game with 11-9.

The following two games saw her extend the dominance that was on display and sealed the match, taking the final two games 11-7, 11-8 to progress to the Round of 32.

The two had previously met on only one occasion, at the 2023 WTT Contenders in Rio when the Swede had taken the 3-1 victory but Akula completed her payback at the biggest stage of them all.

Last month, Sreeja achieved a career-best world No. 24 spot in table tennis rankings after winning the WTT Contender Lagos title. It was the joint-best singles ranking by an Indian table tennis player, joining Manika Batra (2024) and Sathiyan Gnanasekaran (2019).

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