BWF World Junior Mixed Team C'ships: Unnati Hooda, Anupama Upadhyay headline Indian challenge
Oct 16, 2022
New Delhi [India], October 16 : The World Junior Badminton Mixed Team Championships 2022, which begin on Monday in Santander, Spain, will include competition from the Indian badminton team.
Indian team which is captained by Unnati Hooda and Anupama Upadhyay, is the fifth-seeded team and has been placed in Group B with Slovenia, Australia, China, and Iceland. 38 teams have been divided into eight groups for the competition.
The winning teams from each group will go to the quarterfinals, while the second-placed teams will compete for places 9-16, third-placed teams for positions 17-24, fourth-placed teams for positions 25-32, and fifth-placed teams for positions 33-38.
The first global junior mixed team badminton championships were staged in 2000, and they continued to be held every two years until 2006. The junior meet has been conducted annually since then.
The COVID-19 epidemic prevented it from taking place in 2020 and 2021, hence the 2022 edition marks the championship's return after a gap of two years.
The most recent competition was won by Indonesia in 2019, who defeated China 3-1. But China has dominated the competition, taking home 13 titles since it began. Only three other teams have taken home the trophy: South Korea, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
The Indian squad came in at number twelve in 2019 and will be attempting to move up this time around. Fourth place was India's best finish at the competition.
The team will be led by junior world No. 5 Unnati Hooda and junior world No. 3 Anupama Upadhyay, both of whom are 14 years old. Unnati Hooda is the youngest Indian to win a BWF Super 100 tournament.
At the mixed team world junior badminton championships in 2022, each tie will feature five matches: one men's singles match, one women's singles match, one men's doubles match, and one mixed doubles match.
Indian badminton squads
Girls: Unnati Hooda, Rakshitha Sree S, Anupama Upadhyaya, Isharani Baruah, Devika Sihag, Shreya Balaji, Srinidhi N., Radhika Sharma
Boys: Bharat Raghav S, Ayush Shetty, Arsh Mohammad, Abhinav Thakur, Nicholas Nathan Raj, Tushar Suveer, Samarveer, Vighnesh Thathineni
