Right now I am quite up-to-date with the badminton calendar and new players, but up until late 2013 I usually struggled knowing the schedules and which channel is showing what event. Very few Indian sports channels advertised badminton until recently. But despite all that the names of Saina and Sindhu reached my years naturally without any desperate effort on my part. I heard about Saina when she was this barely 18 year old girl already in world top 10. A few years later I learned about this 16 year old Sindhu labeled "next Saina" as she was dominating the national circuit at that age with some good international reults. Since that a few years have passed but I haven't quite heard of a " next Sindhu" or anything like that. Is the Indian talent pool drying up or are there new promising players? So who are the best junior players in India? Where are the new Sainas and Padukones? It is said that performance at junior levels are usually a good predictor of success in future. You don't necessarily look for champions at junior levels, but good performers. So I tried to find using the internet who are the better teenagers in the country. Here are a few names I found. Please inform if you know more about them or other players. Female: Rituparna Das(18y, u19 junior national champion, senior national finalist who lost to Sindhu last year, won All India senior ranking tournament this year). Ruthvika Shivani(recently turned 17y, former u17 national junior champion, in top10 world junior ranking for a year now, Rituparna's main rival, plays for Awadhe Warriors in IBL ) Rasika Raje(recently turned 19y, u19 All India Junior ranking tournament champion, Maharashtra senior state champion, plays for Mumbai Masters in IBL) Shriyanshi Pardeshi(16y, won both u19 and u17 national junior tournaments this year) And there are others too like mrunmayi saoji, tanvi lad, reshma karthik etc. Male: Aditya Joshi(18y, first indian to reach junior world number 1 ranking, semifinalist in youth olympics 2014 nanjing but missed out on a bronze) Harsheel Dani(18y, consitently in top 30 of world junior rankings for nearly two years) Siril Varma(still few months short of 15y, both national junior u17 and u19 champion, asian u15 champion, all india senior ranking champion recently) Kartikeyan Gulshan Kumar(14y, a very dominant player at national u15 level with some junior international success) Lakshya Sen(13y, won praises from Prakash Padukone for footwork, a dominant player in national u15 level with some junior international success) Maishnam Meiraba(still couple of months short of 12y[although some sources report him to be older], currently dominating u13 level nationally with some success at junior international tournaments. ) Then there are a few others such as M Karthiq (who was recently suspected of faking his age, but has good success at junior level), Chirag Sen etc. Did I miss out on anything? Who are the most promising? Will India will soon run out of new talents? I don't see anything too promising or "world class" like a new Sindhu/Saina. Perhaps in terms of age and achievements, Siril Varma is the most promising among all the names.
According to me, shreyanshi pardesi and ruthvika can do well in international circuits and siril verma, lakshya sen, just 13 years old (already won 12 or 13 international titles, who won wimbledon junior U-19 open two weeks before where all the top u-19 playr0ers from england took part . Last week, he won swiss junior u-19 open where many top 10 u-19 players participated. )., Rahul bharadwaj bangalore manjunath , just 14 years old(who was runner up in the last week's swiss junior open losing to eventual winner lakshya sen . Infact he has beaten germany's david peng who is top 10 player in the first round itself very comfortably). These are all the players who will do better in the future..According to me, only these players can do better in seniour circuits. I have heard 13 year old lakshya sen saying that he is aiming for 2020 olympics. Let's see how he proceeds. Personally, I did not get a chance to see much of their matches, with what is available in the videos, I can say maishram neiraba and lakshya sen will achieve better. Their footwork is very good and maishram is one step ahead in shot selection(better).
How did you edit your posts? I see no edit button. I didn't know there is a wimbledon in badminton as well. I only knew about tennis wimbledon. Lakshya Sen, 13, won all these wimbledon and swiss open titles beating international u19 players? That's certainly very impressive. But are these top tier u19 players like chinese? It's hard for me to imagine that any 13y Indian will be able to beat the likes of Shi Yuqi or Lin Gui Pu. Rahul Bharadwaj, age 14, beat rank 10 junior ranking player at age 14? That's also very impressive. I read an article that said that Lakshya Sen is struggling with injuries and suspected that it is because he is being overtrained beyond what his young body can take. I wonder if that is true. For his age Meiraba is certainly a terrific player. He is a very interesting guy too. In an interiew he said that he likes to play psychological games with his opponents and make them think that he is too strong. And in a small video clip I found him talking aloud to himself. But currently I think both Lakshya Sen and Maisnam Meiraba are both too young to place a bet on. Let them beat a few big names in senior circuit first, then we can talk. But Siril Verma and Shriyanshi pardeshi are making their marks already. Aditya Joshi can also be a potential candidate as he was able to reach semifinals of youth olympics 2014. But that said H S Pronnoy was the Silver medalist in the youth olympics in 2010, but he hasn't developed that much it seems. But in 2010 youth olympics the competition was lower. Ruthvika hasn't quite achieved as much. She had an early exit in 2014 youth olympics. But I was impressed by her style of play. There is only one full match of Ruthvika that I was able to find http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZHM48Xryqk starts at 1:17:20
There also seems to be conflict in Rahul Bharadwaj's age. According to one source he should be 14, but according to another he should be 10.
He is 14. And he has played only 2 international events. Quite understandable. 2 weeks before, he played belgium junior open and swiss junior open respectively. In the belgium junior open, he reached semifinals and in swiss junior open, he is runner up. Quite a good performance. It is a very good play for an U-15 player to reach semifinals and finals of U-19 tournaments in his first attempt itself. Edit option is there. You can find it.
It is interesting that not a single Indian player was registered for the junior International tournaments held recently in Asian countries, i.e. Malaysia and Indonesia. On the other hand, India was the only Asian country represented in the Belgian Junior Open and the Swiss Junior Open. Is this a strategy adopted by BAI to take the "path of least resistance" towards improving the results/rankings of the junior players? Or is it just coincidence?
