ITTF World Cup 2024: Sreeja, Manika eliminated in group stage

Sreeja Akula and Manika Batra failed to progress to the knockout stage at the ITTF World Cup in Macao, China on Wednesday.

Both men’s and women’s singles categories have 16 groups each. Matches in group stage consist of four games, with final rankings based on the ratio of games won to games lost. Only the group winners progress to the knockout rounds.

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World No. 39 Sreeja finished second in her group after she went down 3-1 (11-4, 11-4, 13-15, 11-2) against reigning Olympic champion and World No. 4 Chen Meng of China. Sreeja had won 4-0 against Poland’s Natalia Bajor, a player ranked 13 places below her, in her opening fixture.

World No. 37 Manika, who came from a game down to beat Romania’s Adina Diaconu 3-1 in her group-stage opener, also finished second after losing 4-0 (11-6, 11-4, 11-9, 11-4) to World No. 2 Wang Manyu of China.