Sports Shorts: Delhi government yet to honour CWG star Manika with cash reward

Table tennis star Manika Batra, arguably India's best athlete at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, is yet to receive the cash reward promised by the Delhi government, more than three months after her historic effort in Gold Coast.

The Delhi-based Manika had won an unprecedented four medals at the Games including two gold medals (team and singles), a silver (doubles) and bronze (mixed doubles).

As per the existing policy of the Delhi government, a CWG gold medallist gets Rs 14 lakh for gold, Rs 10 lakh for silver and Rs 6 lakh for bronze. Since the amount of the cash prize was a lot lesser than what the athletes from Haryana and Tamil Nadu get, a revised proposal had gone to the Delhi government for approval.

A gold medal winner from Haryana receives Rs 1.5 crore and Tamil Nadu government gives Rs 50 lakh for the yellow metal.

Dharemender Singh, Deputy Director of Education (Sports) in the Delhi government, confirmed that Manika's file has been sent to the cabinet for approval.

"The file of the specific case you are referring to has gone to the cabinet for approval," Singh said.

Sources close to the player revealed that under the revised reward, Manika stands to get Rs 1.7 crore for her four medals (Rs 50 lakh each for gold, Rs 40 for silver and Rs 30 lakh for bronze).

At the felicitation ceremony organised by the Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI) on Sunday night, Manika said she is confident of getting her due soon from the Delhi government.

"I don't know why it has not happened so far but I know it will happen," said Manika, who is now preparing for the next month's Asian Games in Indonesia.

Karman cracks top-200, sets new target of 150 by year-end

Karman Kaur Thandi today became only the sixth Indian woman tennis player to crack the top-200 rankings in singles, jumping 32 places in the WTA chart.

Karman is now ranked exactly 200 in the WTA list.

The 20-year-old Delhi girl, backed by Mahesh Bhupathi, has been in good form in the past few weeks, winning her maiden ITF singles title in Hong Kong and making the semi-finals in two others in China.

In April, the country's top singles player Ankita Raina had broken into the top-200 and is now ranked 195 (-4).

Before these two girls, Sania Mirza, Nirupama Vaidyanathan, Shikha Uberoi and Sunitha Rao had made it to the top-200.

While Sania, winner of six Grand Slam titles in doubles, touched a career-high of 27 in singles in 2007, Nirupama's best rank was 134 in 1997.

Shikha's highest ranking was 122 and Sunita reached 144. Both these players were US citizens even though they represented India on tour.

The Delhi girl is now targetting a good show at the Asian Games, where she will compete in singles along with Ankita Raina.

Commenting on the development, Bhupathi said,"It is a stepping stone. She works very hard and it's good to see her moving in the right direction."

Rutuja Bhosale was the next best Indian at number 388, a gain of 11 places.

In the men's singles, Yuki Bhambri was unchanged at 86 while Ramkumar Ramanathan climbed four places to a career-best 111.

In the doubles, Rohan Bopanna (27), Divij Sharan (38), Leander Paes (80) and Purav Raja (83) were unchanged. Jeeevan Nedunchezhiyan dropped two rungs to 89 while N Siram Balaji (96) and Vishnu Vardhan (98) also maintained their top-100 ranking.