World Junior Badminton Championships: Anupama Upadhyaya, Unnati Hooda, Sankar Muthusamy to spearhead Indian challenge
The Indian team for the the upcoming World Junior Badminton Championships will be spearheaded by newly crowned junior World No. 1 Anupama Upadhyaya, Unnati Hooda and young shuttler Sankar Muthusamy.
The World Junior Badminton Championships will be held in Santander, Spain, from October 17-30.
The team for the prestigious tournament, which is being held after a gap of two years owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, was selected after a thorough selection process. The process involved two All-India Ranking tournaments and a selection trial in Raipur.
Unnati Hooda, who won the Odisha Open Super 100 tournament, topped the girls' singles trials while S Rakshita Sree and Anupama Upadhayaya finished second and third respectively.
India has won one gold, three silver and five bronze medals in the history of the World Junior Badminton Championships.
Reigning Commonwealth Games gold medallist Lakshya Sen is one of the most illustrious Indian medalists and is also the last Indian medal winner in the World Junior Badminton Championships after winning the bronze medal in 2018.
The in-form Bharat Raghav, who won both the All Indian ranking titles in Goa and Panchkula and former junior world No. 1 Sankar Muthusamy, will be India’s best bet in the boy’s singles category with Ayush Shetty completing the lineup.
The tournament will commence with the mixed team category. The five matches played to decide the tie include men’s and women’s singles, men and women’s doubles and mixed doubles.
India will also field two doubles pairs each in the men’s and women’s doubles and mixed doubles category.
The new combination of Arsh Mohammad and Abhinav Thakur along with Nicholas Nathan Raj and Tushar Suveer will shoulder the men’s doubles responsibility.
In the women’s doubles category Ishrani Baruah and Devika Sihag will be joined by Tamil Nadu’s Shreya Balaji and Srinidhi N, the winners of the South Zone U-19 mixed team title.
India squad for the World Junior Badminton Championships
The following players will represent India at the World Junior Championships:
Boy’s singles: Bharat Raghav, Sankar Muthusamy S and Ayush Shetty
Girl’s singles: Unnati Hooda, Rakshitha Sree S and Anupama Upadhyaya
Boy’s doubles: Arsh Mohammad/Abhinav Thakur and Nicholas Nathan Raj/Tushar Suveer
Girl’s doubles: Isharani Baruah/Devika Sihag and Shreya Balaji/Srinidhi N.
Mixed doubles: Samarveer/Radhika Sharma and Vighnesh Thathineni/Sri Sai Sravya Lakkamraju