Indu Puri (born 14 September 1953) is a former

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

n international female

Table tennis Table tennis, also known as ping-pong and whiff-whaff, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight ball, also known as the ping-pong ball, back and forth across a table using small solid rackets. It takes place on a hard table div ...

sportsperson in the 1970s and 1980s. She won the National women's singles title a record eight times. Her highest rankings have been: international 63 (1985), Asian 8, and Commonwealth (2), she was the first Indian woman to beat a world champion, beating Pak Yung-Sun of North Korea in the 1978 Asian Table Tennis Championships at

Kuala Lumpur , anthem = ''Maju dan Sejahtera'' , image_map = , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Malaysia#Southeast Asia#Asia , pushpin_map_caption = , coordinates = , sub ...

Career

Puri took up table tennis at the age of around 11. Her father Amrit Lal Puri was the manager of a jute mill and used to take her to a club in the mill. She took part in the first Nationals in 1969. She won the first of her eight titles in the Ahmedabad Nationals of 1972, defeating Rupa Mukherjee in the final. Her second title was in 1975. She completed her B.A. from Loreto College, Kolkata and joined the

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.She continued there till moving to Union Bank in 1981. Puri suffered from chronic asthma and had a failing eyesight. She took up table tennis as a career despite her doctor's opinion. She shifted her base from humid

Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...

to the dry weather of Delhi in 1978 which eased her asthma. She won her third national title in 1979 and won five more in a row. Her last National title was at Kolkata in 1985 defeating Niyati Roy in the final. She first represented India in the

1973 World Table Tennis Championships The 1973 World Table tennis, Table Tennis Championships were held in Sarajevo from April 5 to April 15, 1973. Medalists Team Individual References External linksITTF Museum
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at Sarajevo. She went on to appear in seven

World Table Tennis Championships The World Table Tennis Championships are table tennis competitions sanctioned by the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF). The World Championships have been held since 1926, biennially since 1957. Five individual events, which include m ...

; India finished in the top 16 at Pyong Yang in 1979. She also represented India in six

Commonwealth Table Tennis Championships The Commonwealth Table Tennis Championships was born at a meeting of Commonwealth delegates in Munich at the 1969 World Championships. Prior to inclusion in the Commonwealth Games proper in 2002, 15 Commonwealth Championships have taken place since ...

, eventually reaching up to number two position in the Commonwealth in 1982. Thereafter she also remained a national-level sports coach. Puri was ranked 8th in the Jakarta Asian Championship in 1982. In the Asian Championship at Kuala Lampur in 1978, she defeated the world champion Pak Yung-Sun of North Korea. She was the chairperson of the committee constituted by the

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to select

Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna The Khel Ratna Award (), officially known as the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award ( Major Dhyan Chand Sport Jewel Award), is the highest sporting honour of India. It is awarded annually by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, Governm ...

2008 and Dhyanchand Award 2009 awardees., and was appointed as an "observer" at various sporting events across the nation.She learned Billiards by a person named Ashok Kumar Bachhawat from Howrah. She was awarded the Arjuna Award for the year 1979-1980. She has served on India's Anti-Doping Appeals Panel.

References

20th-century Indian women 20th-century Indian people Indian female table tennis players 1953 births Living people Recipients of the Arjuna Award Sportswomen from Delhi Indian sports coaches Female sports coaches {{India-tabletennis-bio-stub People from Delhi