India clinches two bronze in World Junior Badminton Championships

B S Sai Praneeth and H S Prannoy brought laurels for India as they won two bronze medals in World Junior Badminton Championships held at Guadalazara, Mexico. Both players performed very well in the tournament which was concluded on April 25.

Praneeth put up an excellent performance in the tournament when he defeated Boonyakorn Thumphanichwong of Thailand in the first round. In the pre- quarterfinals he beat Claer Bout Lucas of France. He continued his wonderful performance in the quarterfinals by winning a victory over Subagja Riyanto of Indonesia by 21-14, 21-10. However, he was not able to continue his run as he lost to Axelsen Viktor of Denmark in semifinals by 17-21, 21-17, 15-21.

Prannoy also shoewed his brilliant skills in the tournament when he vanquished second seed Loh Wei Sheng of Malaysia in the first round. In the pre-quarterfinals, he defeated the ninth seeded Hseih Feng of Chinese Taipei. In the quarterfinals, Prannoy proved his triumph over Liu Kai of China by 21-9, 21-9. He however lost to Korean Kong Ji by 9-21, 13-21 in semifinals.

In the girls’ singles event, P S Sindhu performed well by defeating fifth seed Choi Hye Jin of Korea in the first round and then crushing Wentholt Josephine of the Netherlands in the pre- quarterfinals. However she was not able to win in the quarterfinals as she was defeated by Chinese Suo Di by 21-13, 17-21, 15-21. However she finihed fifth in the tournament after she beat Carolina Marin of Spain by 21-17, 21-19.

Following this win , Prannoy and Praneeth in Boys and Sindhu in Girls have qualified for the Youth Olympics going to be held at Singapore in August this year.