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Indian Table Tennis star Sreeja Akula registered a 9-11, 12-10, 11-4, 11-5, 10-12, 12-10 win over Singapore's Jian Zeng and qualified for the Round of 16 stage of the Paris Olympics 2024. Sreeja Akula started her Paris Olympics 2024 campaign with an 11-4, 11-9, 11-7 and 11-8 win in 28 minutes over Swedish star Christina Kallberg. Akula joins fellow Indian paddler Manika Batra in the pre-quaterfinal stage.
Sreeja Akula started out slow as the 31-seeded Singaporean took the opening game with an 11-9 margin. Zeng seemed poised to take Game 2 as well but the Indian held her nerves to get back into the contest by winning Game 2 12-10.
The Indian didn't look back after taking her first game as she won the next in quick succession with the scoreboard saying 11-4 and 11-5. The 26-year-old continued her stunning before suffering her issues of closing out the fifth and final game. After Jian Zeng took Game 5 12-10, Akula showed off her resilience to take Game 6 12-10 and reach the Round of 16 stage of the Paris Olympics 2024.
The last two years have been incredible for Akula as she clinched the gold in mixed doubles at the 2022 Commonwealth Games with Sharath Kamal. Earlier in the year, Akula was unstoppable by winning her maiden WTT singles career title at the WTT Feeder Corpus Christi in Texas.
Two months later, in March, Sreeja took home the WTT Feeder Beirut II title before becoming the first Indian to win the WTT Contender Lagos in June. She also overtook Manika Batra as the top-ranked Indian paddler as she held a career-high rank of world No. 24.
