Bhavina Patel Won Silver Medal in Tokyo Paralympics

Indian table tennis player Bhavina Patel signed off with a historic silver medal in her maiden Paralymic Games . Moreover, after going down 0-3 to World No 1 Chinese paddler Ying Zhou in the women's singles class 4 final on Sunday. The 34-year-old Patel's impressive run at the Games ended with a 7-11, 5-11, 6-11 loss to Zhou. Zhou is a two-time gold medallist, in the women's singles summit clash which lasted 19 minutes.

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With this medal, India opened their account at the Games. Patel, a wheelchair player, had also suffered a loss to Zhou. Although, one of the most decorated para-paddlers of China, in her first group stage match earlier in the week. Up against an opponent, who has five Paralympic medals to her name including gold medals in singles at Beijing and London. However, Patel seemed to struggle as she couldn't execute her strategy and was left to do the catch up job. Zhou, a six-time World Championship medallist, didn't allow Patel to find her angled returns and get into a rally.

The Final Game against Zhou :

bragging right with a deep push at the baseline. The second game was a one-way traffic as Zhou jumped to a 7-1 lead early on. Patel narrowed it down to 4-7 but the Chinese soon grabbed a 2-0 lead. Pushed to the brink, Patel tried to script a recovery. She moved neck and neck with her opponent till 5-5 in the third game. But Zhou once again moved ahead and sealed the contest with a backhand shot. Patel was diagnosed with polio when she was 12 months old. Moreover, she had defeated World No 3 Miao Zhang of China in the semi-final on Saturday. In the quarter-final on Friday, Patel had defeated 2016 Rio Paralympics gold medallist. And also World No 2 Borislava Peric Rankovic of Serbia to assure herself a medal and script history.

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Patel started playing the sport 13 years ago at the Blind People's Association at Vastrapur. Vastrapur is an area of Ahmedabad where she was a student of ITI for people with disabilities. She reached World No 2 ranking in 2011. After winning a silver medal for India in PTT Thailand Table Tennis Championship. In October 2013, Patel won another silver in the women's singles Class 4 at the Asian Para table tennis championships in Beijing.