India's star table tennis player Manika Batra will be accompanied by her personal coach Chris Adrian for the Commonwealth Games 2022 in Birmingham, England. Sports Tak has acquired the list of athletes and support staff in which Manika's coach's name is mentioned as ETO (extra team official).
A source close to the development has said that her personal coach is with her for past five months. The 27-year-old had requested the association to allow her coach to accompany her for the games. The request has been approved by the sports ministry as well. Adrian has been given accreditation and will stay in the village.
Apart from him, Raman Subramanian and Anindita Chakraborty will coach the men's and women's teams respectively.
Earlier, this year Batra was able to break the top-30 barrier in world rankings. She will be defending her singles crown in Birmingham. Manika made a mark in 2018 Commonwealth games in Gold Coast with win over London Olympics bronze medallist Feng Tianwei to win the gold medal.
In Tokyo Olympics 2020 (2021), Manika could not get a medal. However, she made a comeback and won in mixed doubles at the World Table Tennis event with G Sathiyan.
Recently, the world no.6 doubles pair stormed into the semi-finals of WTT Star Contender Budapest with a convincing win (3-11, 6-11, 5-11) over Spanish pair Maria Xiao and Alvaro Robles. The Indian star duo will take on Japan's Tomokazu Harmoto and Hina Hayata in the semi-final clash.
The women's singles qualifying round 1 will begin on August 3 and the medal games will be played on August 7.
