Meet Sankar Muthusamy: From working-class background to silver medal at Junior Championships

The 18-year-old won a silver medal at the World Junior Championships.

Sankar Subramanian Muthusamy is turning out to be a bright star in the men’s badminton section who recently won the silver medal at the World Junior Badminton Championships held in Spain. Sankar until the finals lost only one game in the five matches he had played putting up a dominant performance. In the finals, Sankar lost to Kuo Kuan Lin from South Korea who ranks outside the top 600 in the BWF singles ranking.

The youngster from Tamil Nadu has been in the reckoning for the past few years playing age-group tournaments from a young age. At the age of 15, he was brought by Chennai Superstarz into the Pro Badminton League becoming the youngest to participate. At the fag end of the league phase Sankar had the opportunity to play from where many started recognizing his performance.

Humble background

Sankar is from a middle-class family with his father being a former Tennis player. Sankar belongs to Firebase academy in Chennai and is currently part of the academy. In India, most of the medallists are either from Gopichand Academy in Hyderabad or from Padukone academy in Banglore but for a change, Firebase academy produced a silver medallist which is located in Chennai.

Aravindan is the personal coach of Sankar Muthusamy who has been the guiding force for the youngster. The Firebase academy unlike the other prominent ones does not have the state of art facilities but has provided Sankar with enough support in training aspects.

The youngster also took part in the Tamil Nadu Badminton Premier League where eight franchises take part similar to the PBL format. Sankar Muthusamy was part of both editions and was one of the star players to watch out for in the entire league.

Tamil Nadu is not known for producing Badminton stars and the sport does not have much dominance, unlike other sports. Though things have started to change over the past few years. Aditya Elango in 2011 became the first player from Tamil Nadu to reach the BWF top 100 rankings. He also took part in the 2007 World Junior Championships.

Ranked fourth in juniors

Sathish Kumar Karunakaran recently broke into the top 100 and currently ranks 87th. Sankar Muthusamy currently ranks fourth in the juniors and 110th in the seniors with 106 being his career best. Even though Sankar is from a middle-class family his parents had to sell their house to make the youngster play in foreign tournaments. The youngster in the start did not have many sponsorships to play top-level tournaments but now is slowly starting to attract sponsorships.

Sankar currently is sponsored by the Go Sports Foundation in Bangalore and the Murugappa Group. Also, the youngster is part of the Target Olympics Podium Scheme (TOPS) helping him with finances.

The youngster from Tamil Nadu is constantly taking part in senior tournaments but is yet to prove his mark. In the junior series, he has performed well but shall look to transition well like 2018 Junior Medallist Lakshya Sen. 

Performances in 2022

Syed Modi International - Round of 32

Odisha Open - Round of 64

Iran Junior International Series - 1st

Polish Open - Round of 32

Austrian Open - Round of 32

Cameroon International - Quarterfinals

Maharashtra International - Quarterfinals

Yonex Vietnam Open - Round of 16

Infosys Challenger  - Round of 16 

Medal boost

Most of the tournaments he participated in were at the senior level but couldn't make any big success in any of the tournaments. This season should be a learning curve for Sankar after getting to know the level of play in the senior tournaments. The next aim for him is to get into the top 100 of the BWF rankings and put up a good fight for the Paris Olympics quota which gets started from the 2023 season.

India does not have many left-handed players and Muthusamy being a lefty provides good variability. Sankar has good net play and needs to work more on hitting the smashes and fitness. He will be playing higher-level players regularly from the next season.

Sankar Muthusamy was not included in the team events for the Badminton Youth Championships. He left the National camp held in Banglore and went to play the Infosys Challenger. But with the form, Sankar was in and being a medal prospect Badminton Association of India accepted the apology. He was then sent for the singles event eventually showcasing his talent at the world level. 

Aparna Popat became the first Indian to win a medal at the Junior Championships and since then many have succeeded to win at the major event. With this silver medal, India overall has won ten medals (one gold, four silver, and five bronze medals). Saina Nehwal remains the only Indian to date to win the gold medal.