Home Badminton Junior Worlds medal just a step up the ladder as eager Tanvi Sharma eyes splash at senior level

Junior Worlds medal just a step up the ladder as eager Tanvi Sharma eyes splash at senior level

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Tanvi Sharma’s lock screen photo tells you a lot about the 16-year-old personality – it’s Tai Tzu Ying, the shot-making genius idolised by players with Tanvi’s game style.

There’s a long way to go for Tanvi to be mentioned in the same conversation as Tai, of course. She is still a work in progress, which is why a loss in the final of the BWF World Junior Championships to Thailand’s Anyapat Phichitpreechasak at home is not as heart-breaking as it sounds.

Sure, the straight-games loss in front of a loud 4000-strong home crowd at the stadium she has been training at for the last year was gutting. Her strokes and deceptions were read by her crafty opponent early on, and this, plus the pressure of playing at home, contributed to her defeat. In fact, Tanvi says that she didn’t even expect to medal at the event despite being the top seed because she had struggled with her form and illness in the last few weeks.

Seen from this lens, this medal is a bonus. And in the bigger picture, this silver medal is more than a silver lining; it can well be a guiding light for the future. For Indian badminton and the discipline of women’s singles, a legacy that has far too long been without real hope for the future, Tanvi becoming the first girls’ singles medallist since Saina Nehwal in 2008 is tangible proof of this hope.

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Tanvi comes from Hoshiarpur in Punjab and was introduced to the sport by her mother Meena, a sports enthusiast who wanted her children to become athletes. Tanvi picked up the racquet seeing her older sister Radhika play with their mother, who was also their first coach. Meena trained herself as a coach and then Tanvi and Radhika through the national junior circuit. Meena now keeps a low profile and prefers to sit in the back benches of the stadium; in fact you would not have guessed on Sunday that the finalist’s mother and first coach were both in the Guwahati crowd unless you knew where to look.

In the last few years, Tanvi has had a stint at the Gopichand Academy in Hyderabad, was a senior national runner up at 15 (after a mid-match injury marred the final), and has steadily risen to become the world No 1 in juniors. She is now based at the newly formed National Centre for Excellence in Badminton in Guwahati, receiving centralised training from the Badminton Association of India, under coach Park Tae-sang who famously guided PV Sindhu to an Olympic medal in Tokyo in 2021.

A solid background, a sound support system and a plan in place for the future.

The biggest smile on Tanvi Sharma’s face after her final loss in the BWF World Junior Championships was when she was told that badminton legend Chen Long had taken her name when asked about Indian juniors while coaching the Chinese team. He mentioned ‘Sharma’ who has already reached a senior final. That was in May this year, at the US Open Super 300 on the senior circuit – that fact has not gone unnoticed.

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This senior stage is clearly the target for Tanvi and the team around her. Coach Park has even gone on to say that this would be her last junior World Championship, when she was trailing in the medal confirming quarterfinal match.

The transition from junior to senior is tougher in women’s singles, as a teen’s physicality and physiology undergoes changes. For Tanvi, the biggest upgrade to make is in her physical strength. This week, she had to forego heavy training before the semifinal as she was tired after the quarterfinal and the daily matches.

She has the game and shots to win eye-catching points, but at the highest level the game is about using stamina, and patience, to stay in the rallies and use that game. This is a skill Tanvi will have to learn to supplement her superb smash.

The good thing is that she seems self-aware of this. “When your endurance is weak, you have to win points with your strokes….To get to the next level, it’s going to be about endurance, there will be more rallies so I need to work on power and strength.” The plan is to increase her gym sessions from the usual.

“You also have to be strong mentally. At the senior level, patience becomes very important when the rallies are longer, there will be unforced errors.”

In the final, it is these unforced errors when trying to end points that proved to be her undoing. She was nervous, as early as the first few points, she admitted, and it showed. “I did get nervous with the crowd and all. I wouldn’t be sad if I lost playing well, but after so many mistakes… I am both happy and sad.”

This loss then is a good lesson to carry at 16. This mental and physical upskilling will be a slow and hard process, but it’s one she, coach Park and mother Meena are all eager about.

Eager can be a defining trait for Tanvi. No just the eagerness with which she unlashes her cross court smash, but also the eagerness to put in the yards needed to make that successful switch from juniors to seniors. She has the support system needed for it, and likely the patience for it too.

Patience and eagerness can be opposing ideas, but it fits into the contradictions of being a star junior athlete like Tanvi, who has experienced what it feels like – the frenzy for photographs, even the long interview sessions with the media – but still is surprised how people recognised where her mother was sitting in the stands. One who likes the cartoon Doraemon but also studies for her college exams every night for two hours after the players have to turn in their phones per the academy’s rules. One who has started reading self-betterment books like Atomic Habits inspired by her sister, but also enjoys watching comedy like Tarak Mehta ka Ooltah Chashma and The Kapil Sharma Show.

Tanvi has all the raw material and the resources to turn the potential into consistency, and this final loss into just a footnote of a sporting story to remember.



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