Tanvi Sharma wins silver at BWF World Junior Championships 2025
Tanvi Sharma’s remarkable run at the BWF World Junior Championships 2025 ended with a silver medal after a 7-15, 12-15 loss to Thailand’s Anyapat Phichitpreechasak in the final. Tanvi’s performance earned her praise as the fifth Indian to win silver
Hyderabad: India’s Tanvi Sharma’s brilliant run in the BWF World Junior Championships 2025 ended with a silver medal after the 16-year-old’s spirited effort wasn’t enough to defeat Thailand’s Anyapat Phichitpreechasak in the girls’ singles final at the National Centre of Excellence in Guwahati on Sunday.
In the final, Tanvi went down 7-15, 12-15 against Anyapat, as India’s campaign on home turf concluded with an individual silver and a team bronze. Tanvi becomes the fifth Indian to win a silver medal in the competition, following Aparna Popat (1996), Saina Nehwal (2006), Siril Verma (2015), and Sankar Muthuswamy (2022).
In the boys’ singles final, China’s Liu Yang Ming Yu avenged his defeat in the Asian Junior Championships earlier this year by beating top seed Mohd Zaki Ubaidillah of Indonesia 15-10, 15-11 to clinch the title.
Tanvi struggled to find her rhythm in the opening game, where she attempted to win quick points but ended up making several errors. Anyapat’s ability to read her flat pushes and flick tosses also worked against Tanvi, with the Thai player clinching seven straight points from 5-6 to take a comfortable lead and close the game in just nine minutes.
Tanvi looked more comfortable after the change of ends, as she began serving short for the first time in the entire tournament. She managed to clinch six straight points after dropping the first.
However, Anyapat quickly adjusted her strategy, engaging Tanvi in longer rallies and playing a patient game to induce errors from her opponent. The Thai player clinched another seven straight points to open a four-point lead at 12-8.
Tanvi kept trying different tactics, including flick pushes and slow drops, but Anyapat managed to stay in the rallies and eventually closed out the match with a stick smash, breaking the hearts of the Indian badminton fans in the stadium.
“I was not comfortable. From the start of the match, I made a lot of mistakes. In the second game, I did manage to play my strokes but once again I ended up making mistakes after 8-5. After that, my coach told me to keep playing, and I did that. But she was reading my strokes very well,” said Tanvi after the match.
In other events, China’s Tan Ke Xuan/Wei Yue Yue clinched the girls’ doubles crown with a 15-13, 19-17 win over Zi Yu Low/Noraqilah Maisarah of Malaysia, while Lee Hyeong Woo and Cheon Hye In of Korea defeated Hung Bing Fu/Chou Yun An of Chinese Taipei 15-9, 11-15, 15-10 to win the mixed doubles title.
