Top five junior Indian badminton players to watch out for
13-Year-Old Tanvi Patri has won the U15 Asian Championships Gold Medal in 2024.
The most important thing for a badminton nation is to have good depth and good upcoming Junior Players to be a relevant badminton nation. Without a good depth or good Junior players badminton can’t strive in a country. Let’s take the example of Singapore and Spain where no top players have emerged apart from Loh Kean Yew and Carolina Marin.
France was not a good badminton country before, but now it is one of the emerging badminton countries thanks to their junior players. Alex Lanier, Toma Popov and Christo Popov are quite young and can be a force to reckon with.
Also Read: Top five emerging Indian badminton players to watch out for in 2025
India also has a lot of promising junior players but the only question is Will the Juniors replicate their Junior Performance in the senior circuit? We have seen many Indian players whose transition from junior to senior is not easy.
Be it Siril Verma (2015 World Junior Silver medalist), or Sankar Subramanian (2022 World Junior Silver medalist). On the other hand, we have players who have replicated the Junior success in the senior circuit like PV Sindhu, Lakshya Sen and Saina Nehwal. Currently, we have a lot of young players.
We all know about Anmol Kharb, Unnati Hooda, Shriyanshi Valishetty, Ayush Shetty, Prannay Shettigar, Devika Sihag and many more young players like them who have been in the circuit for quite a long time. Apart from them, there are some unknown Junior Players as well who have been doing well in the circuit and we can expect them to follow the path of Sindhu, Saina, Sen and Satwik/Chirag in the future.
On that note, let’s have a look at the top five junior Indian badminton players to watch out for.
Rounak Chouhan
The 17-year-old rising star, Rounak Chouhan, is one to watch in this tournament. He recently won the Kotak India Junior International Series, defeating compatriot Laksh Chengappa Machangada Aiyappa in a thrilling three-game final. En route, he also beat Chinese Taipei and Indonesian players. In the recently concluded Guwahati Masters, Rounak played his heart out against Malaysian Adil Sholeh, a top 100-ranked player. Chouhan lost the match but impressed everyone with his gameplay.
Rounak also impressed everyone in the Senior Nationals as well. He won the bronze medal in both Individual and team events. In the Team event, he won both his matches in straight games to help his team Chattisgarah win the bronze medal.
In the Individual event, he reached the semifinal to win the bronze medal. En route he defeated many senior players, He defeated the 5th seed Saneeth Dayanand and 14th seed veteran Alap Mishrah both in straight games. His dream run ended when he lost to Mithun Manjunath in the semifinal
Tanvi Sharma
The 15-year-old prodigy, Tanvi Sharma, is considered the next big thing in Indian badminton. She was the runner-up in last year’s nationals as well. Tanvi recently finished as the runner-up of the Odisha Masters and has entered the top 100 in the BWF world rankings.
She was also a quarterfinalist at the Junior World Championships 2024 and won a silver medal in the 2023 U17 Asian Championships. With age, Tanvi is expected to shine in the future. She was also part of the 2024 women’s team that won the gold medal at the Asian Championships.
Also Read: Top 10 best performers in badminton in 2024
She is training under PV Sindhu’s former coach Park Tae-sang, who helped her win the bronze medal. When Tanvi finished as the runner-up of the Odisha Masters Sindhu tweeted and said “I’m thrilled for her and the amazing Coach Park! Coach Park truly has a gift for unlocking potential. Keep pushing forward, Tanvi — the sky’s the limit!”.
Although Park doesn’t travel with her to the tournament, she trains at the National Centre of Excellence (NCE). His other coach Sankar Annamalai travels with her during tournaments.
Bhavya Chhabra/Param Choudhary
One of the promising combinations to keep an eye on is the young doubles team of Bhavya Chhabra and Param Choudhary. At the 2024 Junior World Championships, they impressed us with the gameplay. The pair’s age is one of their key advantages. They both are quite young. At the moment, Bhavya, 17, and Param, 16, are working with Ivan Sozonov at the National Centre of Excellence (NCE).
In the Kotak India Junior International Series, they finished second. Another benefit is that since they both are from the same state, they know each other very well and it can be helpful as chemistry is important in a doubles discipline. They reached the Round of 16 of Senior Nationals defeating two senior pair and lost to fifth seed in the pre-quarterfinals.
Bhargav Ram Arigela/Viswa Tej Gobburu
One of the most promising Junior pairs, Bhargav Ram Arigela and Viswa Tej Gobburu are also among the players to watch out for. The young India duo has impressed in the Jr. World Championships held this year. Both are 17 years old and are expected to do well in the future.
The pair are currently at the NCE (National Centre of Excellence) and are working under Ivan Sozonov. Bhargav also plays mixed doubles with Vennala Kalagotla.
Tanvi Patri
The 13-year-old prodigy, Tanvi Patri is the youngest player to watch out for. Coming from Odisha, Tanvi has achieved great success in the Junior Circuit. At such a young age Tanvi has won U15, U17 All India Sub Junior Ranking tournament thrice this year. Her grassroots foundation is also strong as she started playing badminton in China where her father was a software professional.
She also got a chance to train under Chinese top Coach Jiang Yong Yi. She had won 9 titles in China before Covid 19. After Covid, she moved back to India and joined Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy (PPBA).
With a strong foundation, Tanvi is expected to do well in the future. She also won the U15 Asian Girls Singles title this year. Tanvi finished as the runner-up in her first Senior International tournament CM Trophy India International Challenge. En route, Tanvi defeated Isharani Baruah and Deepshikha Singh as well before losing to Rakshita Santhosh Ramraj in the final.
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