Indian Shuttlers Confirm Five Medals at Badminton Asia Junior Championships

Indian shuttlers Unnati Hooda, Gnana Dattu, Anish Thoppani and two doubles pairs marched into the semifinals to assure the country of five medals at the Badminton Asia U-17 & U-15 Junior Championships 2022 in Nonthaburi, Thailand on Friday.

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The pairs of Arsh Mohammad and Sanskar Saraswat, and Bjorn Jaison and Aathish Sreenivas P.V. confirmed medals for India in the doubles category.

The Indian shuttlers have grabbed five medals in 2018 while they won two in the 2019 edition. The prestigious continental event is being conducted after two years following the pandemic.

The junior World No.4 Unnati continued her sensational run as she outclassed South Korea’s Min Ji Kim in the U-17 women’s singles quarterfinals in straight sets 21-15, 21-18.

Top-seed Unnati will now face Japan’s Milon Yokouchi in the semifinals, the Badminton Association of India (BAI) informed in a release on Friday.

Dattu and Anish, on the other hand, had to work hard in the U-15 men’s singles’ last-eight contests against their Indonesian opponents before they wrapped up the matches in three sets.

While the seventh-seeded Dattu got the better of fourth-seed Radithya Wardhana 21-11, 13-21, 21-11, Anish claimed a 22-20, 19-21, 21-12 win over fifth-seeded Glend Rumondor to confirm the Last-4 berth.

Dattu and Anish will be up against Chinese Taipei’s Chung-Hsiang Yih and Lee Yu-Jui respectively in the semifinals.

Meanwhile, the in-form U-17 men’s doubles pair of Arsh and Sanskar earned a hard-fought victory against Indonesia’s Nawaf Khoiriyansyah and Adriel Leonardo by 24-22, 20-22, 21-15.

And then, the duo of Bjorn and Aathish added a second doubles medal to India’s tally when they clinched a come-from-behind 16-21, 21-12, 21-17 victory against Chinese Taipei’s Sheng-Ming Lin and Chla-Yu Tsai in the U-15 men’s doubles category.

Meanwhile, the U-17 mixed doubles pair of Mayank Rana and Jiya Rawat and the U-15 women’s doubles pair of Tanvi Andluri and Durga Kandrapu ended their campaigns with quarterfinals defeats.

The semifinals will take place on Saturday while the finals will be played on Sunday.