Guwahati (Assam) [India], October 19 : India's Tanvi Sharma had to settle for a silver medal in the girls' singles event competition in the Badminton World Federation (BWF) World Junior Championships tournament held at Guwahati, Assam, on Sunday.
In the final, Tanvi went down 7-15, 12-15 against Anyapat as India's campaign on home turf ended with an individual silver and a team bronze. Tanvi is the fifth Indian to bag a silver medal in the competition after Aparna Popat (1996), Saina Nehwal (2006), Siril Verma (2015) and Sankar Muthuswamy (2022) achieved that feat in the past, as per a press release from the Badminton Association of India (BAI).
In the boys' singles final, China's Liu Yang Ming Yu avenged his loss in the Asian Junior Championships earlier this year to beat top seed Mohd. Zaki Ubaidillah of Indonesia 15-10, 15-11 to clinch the title.
Tanvi clearly struggled to find her rhythm in the opening game as she tried to win quick points but ended up making quite a few errors. Anyapat's quick reading of her flat pushes and flick tosses also did not help the Indian's cause with the Thai clinching seven straight points from 5-6 to take a sizeable lead and then closed the game in just nine minutes.
The Indian looked much more comfortable playing her strokes after the change of ends as she began serving short for the first time in the entire tournament and clinched six straight points after dropping the first.
But Anyapat was quick to change tactics as she then began engaging Tanvi in longer rallies and playing the patient game to induce errors from the Indian opponent. She managed to clinch seven straight points once again to open a four-point advantage at 12-8.
Tanvi continued to try everything, catching her opponent with her flick pushes and slow drops, but Anyapat managed to stay alive in the rallies and eventually closed out the match with a stick smash to break the hearts of the Indian badminton fans in the stadium.
"I was not comfortable. From the start of the match, I made a lot of mistakes. In the second game, I did manage to play my strokes, but once again I ended up making mistakes after 8-5. After that, my coach told me to keep playing, and I did that. But she was reading my strokes very well," said Tanvi after the match.
China's Tan Ke Xuan/Wei Yue Yue clinched the girls doubles crown with a 15-13, 19-17 win over Zi Yu Low/Noraqilah Maisarah of Malaysia, while Lee Hyeong Woo and Cheon Hye In of Korea defeated Hung Bing Fu/Chou Yun An of Chinese Taipei 15-9, 11-15, 15-10 to bag the mixed doubles title.
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