Bhavina, Sonal win doubles gold

Gandhidham : Tokyo Olympic silver medalist Bhavina Patel teamed up with her longtime doubles partner Sonal Patel and grabbed gold medal in the women’s doubles (classes 5-10) category of the ITTF Costa Brava Spanish Para Open table tennis tournament played in Platja d’Aro here.

The Ahmedabad duo had easy outings in the early-round matches as they crush Santos Amaral of Brazil and Carolina Tabib of Israel 3-0 to storm into the final.

However, in the final against the Korean pairing of Mi Lee and Mi Shin, the Indian were staring defeat when they were 0-2 down. Not throwing in the towel yet, both women turned the match around by winning the next three games to script an unbelievable victory.

Apart from this, Bhavina entered the final of the women’s singles Classes 4-5 category too.

The southpaw faltered at the final hurdle as she went down 0-3 to Sandra Mikolaschek of Germany to settle for silver.

The Tokyo Games medallist, along with her mixed doubles partner Jashwant Chaudhary, won another silver medal in the mixed doubles (Classes 7-10) event.

“Its amazing that Gujarat’s para paddlers are doing so well in international tournaments. This will encourage all our paddlers,” said the president, Gujarat State Table Association, Shri Pramod Chaudhary.