PM Modi, President Kovind laud paddler Bhavina Patel for historic Tokyo Paralympics glory

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Ram Nath Kovind have come forward and congratulated Bhavina Patel on clinching a historic silver medal in the Tokyo Paralympics 2020 Women's Singles Table Tennis Class 4 category final on Sunday. Bhavina Patel finished second-best after losing to China's Zhou Ying in the gold medal match. 

Tokyo Paralympics 2020: PM Modi, President Kovind laud Bhavina Patel

Taking to the micro-blogging site, PM Modi called Bhavina Patel 'remarkable' for scripting history and also on bringing home the 'historic' silver medal. Furthermore, he also added that Bhavina's life journey is 'motivating' and that it will also draw more youngsters towards sports.

President Kovind on his Twitter handle mentioned that Bhavina Patel 'inspires' the Indian contingent and sports lovers winning silver at the ongoing Tokyo Paralympics 2020. He then added that the paddler's 'extraordinary determination' and 'skills' have brought glory to India. President Ram Nath Kovind concluded by congratulating Bhavina on this 'exceptional achievement'.

By the virtue of this win, Bhavina Patel also achieved a new feat as India won its first-ever r Table Tennis medal either at Olympics or the Paralympics.

Tokyo Paralympics 2020: Bhavina Patel wins silver

Coming back to the contest, both the contestants were evenly matched when the game started but it was Zhou Ying who marched ahead and even though Patel did make a comeback towards the end, it was too late as the Chinese paddler won the first game 1-0 with 11-7 margin.

Bhavina looked to keep her hopes alive with a dominant performance in the second game where she went down 5-11 which meant that she had to win the third game in order to keep her gold medal dreams alive.  The star Indian paddler looked to dominate but Ying was too good for her and in the end, clinched the gold medal with a 3-0 scoreline. The Chinese paddler won the third game 11-6.