Rising Youthful Indian shuttler Unnati Hooda finished with a silver medal in the women’s U-17 event at Badminton Asia U-17 & U-15 Junior Crowns 2022 in Nonthaburi, Thailand on Sunday. Men’s U-15 mates player Anish Thoppani and U-17 men’s doubles brace of Arsh Mohammad and Sanskar Saraswat also bagged medals for India.
Unnati Hooda becomes first Indian to enter final of U-17 women’s singles Badminton Asia Junior C’ships
According to the Badminton Association of India, Hooda had formerly created a slice of history when she came the first Indian to enter the U-17 women’s final at the Asia Junior Crowns. Preliminarily, men’s doubles dyads of Arjun MR- Chirag Shetty (2013) and Krishna Prasad Garaga- Satwiksairaj Rankireddy (2015) have won gold medals for India in the-17 order at the event.
Top seed Hooda, taking on alternate seed Sarunrak Vitidsarn of Thailand, went down in three games in what turned out to be a controversial finish to the match. The 15- time-old Indian dropped the opening game as Vitidsarn won five straight points from 16- 18 down but bounced back brilliantly to take the alternate game 21- 9. Hooda traced 5- 11 as the decider but after the change of ends, formerly again set up a new gear closing the gap down and levelling effects at 14- 14.
Hooda contended her case, saying she had put her hand up when she was lying down. But neither the arbiter nor the adjudicator did anything about it. After a long argument play proceeded and the Thai youth contended ahead to the finish line winning 18- 21, 21- 9, 14- 21 in 66 twinkles. The Indians didn’t win a point after that rally.
With two citation orders formerly won, and three further to come on Sunday after the tests, India is sure to finish with five medals this time. Indian badminton players won five medals in 2018 while they won two in the 2019 edition. The prestigious international event is being conducted after two years following the COVID- 19 epidemic and will conclude on Sunday.
