Tanvi Patri crowned Asian U-15 badminton champion

Tanvi Patri became the third Indian girls’ singles player to be crowned Asian U-15 champion on Sunday (August 25) with an emphatic win over Vietnam’s Nguyen Thi Thu Huyen in the finals of Badminton Asia U-17 & U-15 Junior Championships in Chengdu, China.

The Indian top seed defeated second seed Nguyen 22-20, 21-11 in 34 minutes to clinch the title without dropping a single game throughout the tournament.

With the win, Patri joins the likes of Samiya Imad Farooqui (2017) and Tasnim Mir (2019) to be crowned Asian U-15 champions.

The 14-year-old India needed time to settle into the final against Nguyen and that allowed the Vietnamese to run the eventual champion close in the opening game. But once she closed out the opening game, she was in total control and closed out the match without breaking much sweat in the second game.

“Tanvi Patri’s title-winning run at the Badminton Asia Championships, along with Gnana Dattu's bronze medal in the U17 men's singles category, once again underlines the strong talent pool India possesses and the efforts of the Badminton Association of India (BAI) to identify and nurture this talent.

“The robust and extremely competitive domestic circuit has been playing an important role in preparing our top players for such major international events. I am confident that we will see many more title triumphs from not just Tanvi and Gnana, but other Indian juniors in the coming times,” said BAI Secretary General Sanjay Mishra.

India’s Gnana Dattu TT also bagged a bronze medal in the boy's U-17 singles category while three other Indian players made it to the quarter-final stage in the competition.