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An Under-21 match played in Santiago, Chile in August 2011 is Manika Batras fondest memory so far. Indias top-ranked womens table tennis player, 16 at the time, came back from two games down in the semi-final against Japans Kasumi Ishikawa to win the next four games on the trot. Ishikawa, who won the womens singles title two days later, is now ranked sixth in the world.I had no expression on my face, though I was delighted, says Manika, who will be leading the Indian challenge in the womens singles event at the Rio Olympics alongside the seasoned Mouma Das.Born into a family in Delhi where elder siblings Anchal and Sahil both took up table tennis, Manika tried her hand at the sport at the age of four. Early signs of natural ability came when she won a match in a state-wide tournament for Under-8 players. That was around the time she enrolled with Sandeep Gupta, her coach to date.She was four years old when I first took a trial of hers, says Gupta. I have seen how other countries formulate their sports plan; for instance in China, by the time a child is four-five years old, they can tell which sport he/she is best suited for. Thats why it was an advantage for Manika to start this young.On Guptas recommendation, Manika switched schools in the first standard, joining her coachs academy at Hansraj Model School. This also brought her in contact with her elder sisters peer Neha Aggarwal, who would go on to play a major role in inspiring Manika.Neha, who competed in Beijing eight years ago and will complete a sports management degree from Columbia University in New York soon, remembers Manikas early days as a shy child who kept to herself. For some reason, she used to be really scared of our coach, says Neha. Id keep telling her to open up.Gupta says: In India, theres often a very thin line between having respect for a coach, and getting into a comfort zone. Manika always followed everything I said. But her problem was her nature; she often couldnt express herself. If she wanted to learn something new or work on something in her game, she could often not say it for herself, which made it a greater challenge for me as coach.Thats when Gupta employed a novel method to work with Manikas strength, her backhand, and turn it into a potent weapon. Neha remembers how both she and Manika were made to play with long-pimple rubber on their backhand and the more conventional inverted rubber on their forehand. This has made Manikas forehand considerably stronger over the past four years, says Neha.Manikas height, five feet eleven inches, also gives her an edge over many opponents. Because of her reach, shes always close to the table and hence can switch from forehand to backhand without too much movement. But the downside is that balls played to her body require an extra split-second to retrieve. Her height has also made her vulnerable to injuries in the past. Because I am tall, I have had issues with my back and thighs, but I have been working hard to strengthen my core, Manika says. I have paid a lot of attention to fitness.The effort Manika has been putting into fitness is just one of the things that has always impressed both Neha and Gupta. What often happens with kids is they get bored if you ask them to master one aspect at a time, Gupta says. Due to lack of maturity, they want to quickly move on from skills to exercise to fitness. But Manika was always dedicated, and she would continue to do whatever she was asked to without complaining.Neha says: Shes a completely different person on the table from what she is off it. She knows how to put her game face on. On the table, shes very aggressive. She can be very deceptive with her game, and her game has the perfect mix of aggression and passive play.Manikas performances have improved over the past two years, with a quarterfinal finish at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, a match she believes she should have closed out against eventual bronze-medallist Lin Ye of Singapore.Since 2014 she has cultivated the habit of recording the matches of every competitor to analyse their strengths and weaknesses. Daily meditation also helps her stay calm.These attributes helped her in a competitive group alongside compatriots Das, Pooja Sahasrabuddhe and K Shamini at the Asian qualifiers for the Olympics in Hong Kong in April. After losing her first match to Pooja, she came back strongly to top her group by beating both Shamini and Das to book her berth to Rio. The last win would have been the most satisfactory, as the experienced Das had beaten Manika in the final at the South Asian Games in February to deny her a perfect return from the event, after golds in the womens team event, the womens doubles and the mixed doubles.Neha believes Manika is part of a generation of players who can revive the status of womens players in India, who have lagged behind the men for a variety of reasons. While all the top five Indian men play for clubs abroad, few among the women do -- only Shamini among the top womens players spent two years playing in Germany. Among the younger players, Diya Chitale of Mumbai and Archana Kamath of Bengaluru are breaking the mould by training abroad, but this is just the start.Indian womens table tennis has lagged behind because our women have never looked beyond a Commonwealth medal, says Neha. The men have sacrificed national championships to go and participate abroad, but that shows that they have learnt to prioritise better.Gupta believes those first steps towards a stellar career could begin in Rio. Manika is still young, and qualifying for Rio in itself is a big thing, says Gupta. Shes the first Indian who has had wins over top-10 womens players in the world across the last couple of years. I wouldnt be surprised if Manika makes the quarterfinals or even better, but I will say that shes got nothing to lose.Neha sounds a word of caution though about expecting too much from someone ranked number 130 in a competitive field of 86 participants. The former Olympian chooses instead to focus on how Manikas role could be significant in terms of the larger picture of womens table tennis in India. Manika is a symbol of a whole new generation of players who are young, talented and much more driven, Neha says. She hasnt trained abroad as yet, and thats where the real challenge for her is. Her career starts once the Olympics get over.Cheapest Nmd Trainers . PETERSBURG, Fla. Fake Ultra Boost For Sale .C. -- Chris Thorburn thinks one of the reasons the Winnipeg Jets have been successful under new coach Paul Maurice is that theyre playing together as a team. http://www.nmdukonlinestore.com/nmd-r2-trainers-outlet-deals.html . This should be celebrated because it will not always be this way. With the amount of money given to players by their clubs these days, it is a wonder that so many of those teams allow the sport to continue to take away many of their assets so they can play for a different team in the middle of their season. Cheap Fake Nmd . Ronaldo produced a spectacular individual performance on Tuesday, scoring all three goals and guiding Portugal into the next years World Cup in Brazil with a 3-2 victory in Sweden. 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It did not remind players of the NBAs rule saying players must stand for the national anthem, something that some athletes in other pro sports have chosen not to do in recent weeks in acts of protest.These ideas are based on the actions many of you have already taken or supported, including convening community conversations in NBA markets to engage young people, parents, community leaders and law enforcement in a candid dialogue, read one excerpt of the memo, signed by both NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and union head Michele Roberts.They also said the game should continue bringing people together and build bonds of trust in our communities.The memo was sent on the same day that each player on the WNBAs Indiana Fever roster took a knee and linked arms with a teammate during the playing of the national anthem that preceded the teams playoff game with the Phoenix Mercury.Well, we thought it was important to have a voice about something greater than basketball, said Indianas Tamika Catchings, the longtime WNBA star who played her final game before retirement.It also came on the same day that Golden State coach Steve Kerr said he expected NBA players to take some sort of stand on the issue. On Thursday, Warriors general manager and president of basketball operations Bob Myers said his team would reach out to civic leaders in the Bay Area and invite them to a panel discussion or other sessions with the team to help educate the players and the organization on social issues.Myers said he has plenty to learn.My only experience with any type of negative stereotype or interaction is being white trying to go play basketball. Thats it, in my life, I will tell you, and that is no standing to understand what its like for guys to grow up not white or African-American or whatever you are, Myers said. Thats the only time in my life where I can say Im actually judged negatively where they go, `This guy cant play, hes white. Thats it, and that doesnt even count. Thats stupid. Its very good that theres been a heightened awareness.The NBA and its players already are involved with several social programs together, including ones promoting mentoring.dddddddddddd In the NBA rule book, the wording of the policy related to the anthem is this: Players, coaches and trainers are to stand and line up in a dignified posture along the sidelines or on the foul line during the playing of the National Anthem.Protests during the playing of the anthem have been rare in the NBA, with perhaps the most famed example of one coming 20 years ago when Denvers Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf refused to stand for the anthem because he felt the flag symbolized oppression. He was suspended for a game in March 1996 over his stance.But NBA stars have not been shy about trying to promote social change, and LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Paul and Carmelo Anthony took the stage -- at their own request -- to begin the ESPY Awards broadcast this summer and spoke out about the wave of police shootings that created unrest around the nation in recent months.Their speech was referenced in the memo to players on Wednesday, with Silver and Roberts saying the four stars spoke eloquently about the senseless acts of violence impacting our communities.Im all for people speaking out against injustice, said Kerr, who was 18 when his father -- the president of American University in Beirut -- was murdered. Whatever form that takes, if its non-violent and it leads to conversation, then I think thats a good thing.Oklahoma City general manager Sam Presti said he would like to see Thunder players and staff continue standing for the anthem. He addressed the issue Wednesday, less than a week after an unarmed black man was fatally shot by a white police officer in Tulsa, Oklahoma.Our players have the opportunity and ability to express themselves as people and we respect that above all, Presti said, speaking before the NBAs announcement was distributed.Presti said he was sure the league and the players would be working in concert to find common ground on the issue.The NBA and the players union are usually ahead of these types of situations, Presti said.Thunder guard Victor Oladipo told Complex Sports last week that he expected to see some NBA players taking a knee or acting in a similar fashion to San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, soccers Megan Rapinoe and some NFL players with regard to protests during the anthem.Whatever you believe, believe in to the utmost, Oladipo said. But I think definitely, well see a few guys in the NBA doing the same thing.---AP Sports Writer Janie McCauley in Oakland, California, contributed to this report. ' ' '