Badminton Asia Junior Championship Highlights: Junior World No. 4 Unnati Hooda extended her sensational form in the Badminton Asia Junior Championship as she has booked a spot the final in the U-17 Girls Singles category. Unnati sailed past Japan’s Mion Yokouchi in semifinals in straight games and is now all set to fight for gold medal. Apart from Unnati, India’s Anish Thoppani too has advanced to the final in U-15 Boys Singles. Follow Asia Junior Championship LIVE updates on InsideSport.IN
Badminton Asia Junior Championship Highlights: Unnati Hooda & Anish Thoppani ENTER FINAL, Gnana Dattu settles for bronze in Asia Junior Championship 2022- Watch Highlights
Badminton Asia Junior Championship Semifinal matches
U-17 Girls Singles
Unnati Hooda BEAT Mion Yokouchi – 21-8, 21-17
U-15 Boys Singles
Gnana Dattu LOST TO Chung-Hsiang – 16-21, 21-19, 13-21
Anish Thoppani BEAT Lee Yu-Jui – 18-21, 21-12, 21-12
U-17 Men’s Doubles
Mohammad / Saraswat vs Chiu / Chiu – After 1 PM
U-15 Boys Doubles
Jaison / Sreenivas LOST TO Mubarrok / Pramano – 18-21, 14-21
Anish Thoppani stunned second seed Lee Yu Jui with a come-from-behind 18-21, 21-12, 21-12 victory to enter the gold medal contest. Tjoppani will now face Chinese Taipei’s unseeded Chung-Hsiang Yih in the final.
Meanwhile, in the U-15 Boys Singles, Bjorn Jaison and Aathish Sreenivas settled for bronze medal as the duo lost against Indonesia’s Muhammad Mubarrok and Raihan Pramano 18-21, 14-21.
Arsh Mohammad and Sanskar Saraswat duo in Boys Under-17 also entered the final as they defeated eighth seeded Chinsese Taipri duo Chi-Ruei Chiu and Shao Hua Chiu.
Top-seed Unnati once again lived up to the expectations and stamped her authority in the U-17 women’s singles semi-final when she wrapped up the match in straight sets. The Odisha Open champion has not yet dropped a set in her campaign at the prestigious event.
Previously, men’s doubles pairs of Arjun MR-Chirag Shetty (2013) and Krishna Prasad Garaga-Satwiksairaj Rankireddy (2015) have won gold medals for India in the U-17 category at the tournament.
Unnati will now take on Sarunrak Vitidsarn of Thailand in the gold medal match. The in-form duo of Arsh and Sanskar also showcased a similar dominating display against Chinese Taipei’s Chi-Ruei Chiu and Shao Hua Chiu to ease into the U-17 men’s doubles final with a commanding 21-15, 21-19 win in the lopsided Last-4 contest.
They will now face another Chinese Taipei opponent, Lai Po Yu and Yi-Hao Lin, in the final. Later in the men’s U-15 semi-final, Anish made a sensational comeback after being one set down to stun the second seed Lee Yu-Jui of Chinese Taipei with 18-21, 21-12, 21-12 win.
In the final, Anish will be up against Chung-Hsiang Yih of Chinese Taipei, who beat India’s Gnana Dattu 21-16, 19-21, 21-13 in another semi-final. In 2013, Siril Verma won the gold medal in the men’s U-15 singles while Samiya Farooqui and Tasnim Mir clinched U-15 women’s singles titles in 2017 and 2019 respectively.
With this defeat, Dattu signed off with bronze medals along with the U-15 men’s doubles pair of Bjorn Jaison and Aathish Sreenivas PV, whose impressive run was cut short by the top-seeded Indonesian pair of Muhammad Mubarrok and Raihan Pramono with an 18-21, 14-21 win. The final will be played on Sunday.
Where to watch Badminton Asia Junior Championship LIVE?
All the matches will be LIVE streamed on Badmintion Asia’s official Youtube Channel.
Badminton Asia Junior Championship Highlights: Unnati Hooda & Anish Thoppani ENTER FINAL, Gnana Dattu settles for bronze in Asia Junior Championship 2022- Watch Highlights
Editors pick
