BWF World Junior Badminton Championships begins today in Guwahati

Our Sports Reporter

GUWAHATI: BWF World Junior Badminton Championships will get underway at the National Centre of Excellence here on Monday. The BWF World Junior Championships has returned to India after a gap of 17 years and will be played in two phases from October 6-19. The first phase will see 36 teams vying for the coveted Suhandinata Cup in the mixed team championships followed by the individual championships for the Eye-Level Cup.

India has so far won a total of 11 individual medals in the history of the championships with their best-ever performance coming in Pune 2008 when they bagged a gold and bronze medal.

The current Indian contingent has the potential to surpass that tally and also clinch a mixed team medal thanks to the depth of the squad that has helped the hosts secure second seeding in the championships.

Clubbed with UAE, Sri Lanka and Nepal in Group H, India are favorites to top the group and challenge for a medal in a newly introduced best-of-three set relay-scoring format in which each set will be a race to 45 points.

India will open their campaign against Nepal on Monday, followed by a match against Sri Lanka on Tuesday and UAE on Wednesday.

The other major medal contenders include 14-time champions China or badminton powerhouses Japan, South Korea, Thailand or holders Indonesia for a historic medal.

Indonesia are the in-form team as they  also clinched the Asian Mixed team title beating China in February while India had come within striking distance of beating Japan in the quarterfinals.

India’s medal hope in individual events will depend primarily on girls singles which comprises Asian U-19 championships bronze medallists Tanvi Sharma, who is also junior world number one, Vennala K, China Open quarterfinalist Unnati and Rakshitha. In boys singles India’s hopes will rest mostly on junior world no 14 Rounak Chohan and 17-year-old Gnana Dattu TT.

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