India’s campaign at the Badminton Asia Junior Championships ended on Saturday with Tanvi Sharma and Vennala Kalagotla losing in the women’s singles semifinals in Solo, Indonesia.
Both Tanvi and Vennala clinched bronze medals. For the first time in the competition’s history, India has secured two women’s singles medals at the same edition.
In the first semifinal between two unseeded players, China’s Si Ya Liu defeated Vennala 21-15, 21-18 in 37 minutes.
Liu had a commanding 14-7 lead in the opener before Vennala won eight of the next 11 points to close the gap. However, Liu went on a four-point winning streak to clinch the first game. The second game was a close battle till 15-14 before Liu pulled away and eventually, converted her fourth match point to book her spot in the final.
In the second semifinal, junior world number one Tanvi made quite a few unforced errors at crucial moments and paid the price as she went down 21-13, 21-14 to eighth-seeded Chinese Yin Yi Qing in 35 minutes.
Tanvi was in the contest till 13-13 in the first game before Yin, 73rd in the junior world rankings, won eight straight points to take the lead.
The 16-year-old Indian, who came into the limelight as she finished runner-up at last month’s US Open Super 300 tournament, raced to a 6-1 lead in the second game but Yin bounced back to trail by a single point at the mid-game interval. The Chinese player overtook Tanvi soon and didn’t look back to set up the summit clash with compatriot Liu.
