New Delhi, Dec 4 () The U-17 women’s singles shuttler Unnati Hooda, men’s doubles pair of Arsh Mohammad and Sanskar Saraswat and U-15 men’s singles shuttler Anish Thoppani signed off with silver medals at Badminton Asia U-17 & U-15 Junior Championships 2022 in Nonthaburi, Thailand on Sunday.
Earlier, men’s singles shuttler Gnana Dattu and men’s doubles pair Bjorn Jaison and Aathish Sreenivas P. V. secured bronze medals in the U-15 category.
Unnati, who had become the first Indian shuttler to reach the girls’ U-17 final, went down against Sarunrak Vitidsarn of Thailand while Anish and Arsh/Sanskar fell short against Chinese Taipei’s Chung-Hsiang Yih and Lai Po-Yu/Yi-Hao Lin respectively in the finals.
All three Indian finalists were a game down, won their respective second games, but failed to convert the third.
After losing the first game 18-21, Unnati dominated next and won 21-9. The third game was a neck-and-neck affair till 14-14 before the Thai shuttler raced to victory, clinching the decider 21-14.
While Anish was a little off-beat at the start and his opponent from Chinese Taipei took full advantage of that to win the first game 21-8. Anish regrouped in the second to force a decider. was always seen calming himself despite tense situations and that yielded results as he pocketed the tougher second game 24-22.
The decider was a close affair but errors on crucial points hurt the Indian’s chances as he went down 21-19 in the final game.
bsk