The stage was set. The pressure was on. Ayhika Mukherjee had the ball in hand.
It was the quarterfinals of the 2024 Asian Table Tennis Championship. India were facing South Korea and the fixture on a knife edge at 2-2 after four matches.
And as is the case with most tightly contested fixtures, the fifth match, between Ayhika Mukherjee and Jeon Ji-hee went down to the wire.
With Ayhika leading 11-10, a point would put India into the semi-finals, and a first-ever medal at the event would be theirs.
A simple backhand chop serve was what Ayhika dished out.
Her opponent, Jeon Ji-hee, tried a backhand loop and the ball went beyond the table, sending the Indians into a frenzy.
The medal was secured.
Ayhika, had claimed yet another scalp from the top-tier in world table tennis, with her latest victim being Jeon Ji-hee, ranked 17th in the world.
Interestingly, Ji-hee wasn’t the first higher ranked player that fell to Ayhika on the day.
Earlier, in the opening match of the quarterfinals fixture, the Indian had taken down Shin Yubin, ranked seventh in the world, in a five-set thriller.
Ayhika, ranked world no.92, has now made it a habit of defeating higher-ranked paddlers and in the table tennis circle, she is quite appropriately called the ‘giant slayer.’
HISTORIC 🙌
Indian women’s #TableTennis 🏓 team has stormed into the semifinals for the first time ever, defeating South Korea🇰🇷 3-2 and assuring a medal for India🇮🇳 at the #AsianChampionships 2024🥳.
Massive shoutout to our girls- Manika, Ayhika, and Sreeja for making it… pic.twitter.com/Fxer2Cywzw
— SAI Media (@Media_SAI) October 8, 2024
The giant slayer
”I really get excited when I play higher ranked opponents, I love to play those matches,” Ayhika had told The Bridge during the Ultimate Table Tennis tournament.
For her, it has always been more excitement than nerves, when she is up against the big names, and it has been the case since her early days.
“Right from my childhood days, playing against senior players was something I’ve looked forward to. I do not go in expecting results, I just try to play my best game possible,” she had said.
Just this year, Ayhika beat world no.1 Sun Yingsha in the 2024 World Team Table Tennis Championships.
She also defeated then world no.12 Bernadette Szocs in the recently concluded Ultimate Table Tennis competition.
She followed that up with two victories on the same day, against Shin Yubin and then getting the better of Jeon Ji-hee.
She almost did the same against Japan’s world no.7 Miwa Harimoto, but lost in the fifth game despite being up 6-3 in the decider.
It was Ayhika’s win that sealed the deal for India against Korea, and earlier in the year, she played a crucial role in ensuring the Indian women’s team qualified for the Olympics for the first-ever time.
Along with Sreeja Akula and Manika Batra, Ayhika has been instrumental in propelling Indian table tennis forward. And she is not done yet.
From being labelled the ‘giant slayer,’ Ayhika is gradually on her way into becoming a giant herself.