The Indian Junior Badminton team will feature in the upcoming Badminton Asia Junior Championships and they are placed in a tricky Group along with Bangladesh, Malaysia and Hong Kong. The tournament is all set to commence on July 7.
India are in Group C and it is already considered as the ‘Group of Death’ and India will have to play extremely well to finish at the top of the table especially with Malaysia and Hong Kong posing major threats to their title dreams.
The Indian contingent will start against Bangladesh and will hope that they get that early win and get momentum on their side. The Bangladesh outing will be followed by the clash against Malaysia. Their last match in the group stage will be against Hong Kong.
A total of 16 teams are divided into four groups that will battle it out for the title. Group A consists of China, Indonesia, and Vietnam. Group B will Japan, Chinese Taipei, Singapore, and the Philippines fight it out. Group C, as mentioned, will be having India, Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Hong Kong. Group D consists of Thailand, UAE, and South Korea.
The Badminton Asian Junior Championships was last held in 2019 as Thailand clinched the gold medal with Indonisa bagging the silver and South Korea and China settling for the bronze medal. Team India in that event could only reach the quarterfinals as they lost to Indonesia. However, they did beat Macau and Mongolia so it was not a completely wasted event.
The Indian senior team did really well at the Badminton Asia Championship earlier this year. Indian star Men’s duo of Satwiksairaj and Chirag Shetty bagged the gold medal by beating the Malaysian pairing of Ong Yew Sin and Teo Ee Yi in the final. This was India’s first gold at the Asian meet in 58 years. The last gold at this event was won by shuttler Dinesh Khanna in 1965.
However apart from them, PV Sindhu and HS Prannoy both bowed out from the quarterfinals of the event. The Junior Indian contingent will look to replicate the history made by Satwik-Chirag as they look to scale new heights in Indian badminton.
Here is the complete Indian contingent for the Badminton Asia Junior Championships 2023:\
Boys’ Singles: Lakshya Sharma, Samarveer, Ayush Shetty, Dhruv Negi.
Girls’ Singles: Rakshitha Sree S, Shriyanshi Valishetty, Tara Shah, Anmol Kharb.
Boys’ Doubles: Nicholas Nathan Raj & Tushar Suveer, Divyam Arora & Mayank Rana.
Girls’ Doubles: Radhika Sharma & Tanvi Sharma, Karnika Sree S & Taneesha Singh.
Mixed Doubles: Samarveer & Radhika Sharma, Arulmurugan R & Srinidhi N.
