Our Sports Reporter
GUWAHATI: India’s Tanvi Sharma’s brilliant run in the YONEX SUNRISE BWF World Junior Championships 2025 finished with a silver medal at the National Centre of Excellence here on Sunday. She lost the girls singles final to Thailand’s Anyapat Phichitpreechasak in straight sets 7-15, 12-15.
India finished the campaign in the Junior World Badminton Championship 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.
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 hearts of the Indian badminton fans in the stadium.
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.