Manika Batra has alleged the national coach Soumyadeep Roy asked her to fix Olympic qualifying match

Manika Batra has alleged that the national coach Soumyadeep Roy has asked her to give away a match in the Olympic qualifiers back in March.

India’s table tennis star Manika Batra has alleged that the national coach, who is a former Commonwealth Games gold medallist in the team event and an Arjuna awardee Soumyadeep Roy has asked her to give away a match in the Olympic qualifiers back in March. This is the main reason Manika had refused his help and guidance at the singles competition of the Tokyo Olympic Games.

In response to the Table Tennis Federation of India’s (TTFI) show of cause notice, the table tennis ace has strongly denied that her game was disreputed after she refused the help of Soumyadeep Roy. According to sources from TTFI, world number 56 said that she would not have been able to play her top game and give her complete focus on her matches if someone asked her to indulge herself in match-fixing while they were sitting beside her. Despite many attempts, Roy made himself unavailable to respond to the allegations made by Manika. Roy has not been asked to join the national camp at this very time and has been allowed to present his side of the story in front of the TTFI.

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“The allegations are against Roy. Let him respond and then we will decide the future course of action,” said the TTFI secretary Arun Banerjee, reports PTI.