India’s Sutirtha Mukherjee bowed out of the Tokyo Olympics after a straight-games loss to Portuguese veteran Fu Yu in the second round of the women’s singles table tennis on Monday, reports Olympics.com
Fu Yu beat Sutirtha Mukherjee 11-3, 11- 3, 11-5, 11-5. The Indian table tennis player had earlier beaten the higher-ranked Linda Bergstrom on her Olympic debut.
However, Sutirtha was unable to repeat those heroics against Fu Yu at the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium. Both players were cautious to begin with but Sutirtha Mukherjee committed a few errors to drop the first game.
The 42-year-old Fu Yu was able to dictate the pace of the match at will, taking advantage of Sutirtha’s slow returns to nail her forehands and soon took a two-game lead.
The Indian table tennis player’s attempts to mount more attacks proved futile as Fu Yu was at her best defensively, which pushed Sutirtha back and induced more errors.
Though Sutirtha Mukherjee, 25, began the fourth game with more confidence, Fu Yu was rarely troubled as she focused on getting her returns in and took victory when Sutirtha netted a backhand smash.
