Indian table tennis player Manika Batra has alleged that national coach Soumyadeep Roy asked her to throw a match during the Olympic qualifiers in March and that was the main reason she refused his help in the singles competition of the Tokyo Games.
Responding to Table Tennis Federation of India’s show cause notice, Batra denied that she brought disrepute to the game by refusing Roy’s help.
According to TTFI sources, the world No 56 stated she would not have been able to focus on her match if someone who asked to her indulge in match-fixing months earlier was sitting by her side.
“Besides the need to avoid disturbance due to his last minute intervention, there was an additional and much more serious reason behind my preference to play without the national coach,” the Khel Ratna awardee alleged in her response to TTFI secretary Arun Banerjee.
“The national coach had pressurised me during the qualification tournament in Doha in March 2021 to concede my match to his…