Badminton: 23-member squad for Junior Asian Championship announced

The Badminton Association of India (BAI) has announced a 23-member Indian squad that is set to participate at the Asian Junior Championships in Suzhou, China from July 20-28, 2019. The boys’ singles challenge will be spearheaded by Manipur’s Maisnam Meiraba Luwang, who has amassed an impressive total of 1000 points, by virtue of a fine run in the domestic circuit winning consecutive four domestic junior titles as well as both the selection tournaments. BAI has considered the cumulative ranking points from the two All India Junior Ranking tournaments held in Chennai and Trivandrum, in the month of May while selecting the squad said Ajay K Singhania, General Secretary, BAI. The girls’ team will be spearheaded by the Airport Authority of India's

Malvika Bansod followed who topped the list with 1000 points. While Meiraba topped the chart in the boys’ singles section, the others joining him will be the Tamil Nadu trio of Sathish Kumar, Sidhant Gupta and Sankar Muthuswamy. In girls’ singles, AAI Malvika Bansod will be joined by Delhi's Ashi Rawat, Unnati Bisht of Uttarakhand and the 2017 U-15 Asian Junior Championships gold medallist Samiya Imad Farooqui from Telangana. While considering the player's selection, each of the leg winners gets 500 while the runner-up bags 425. The rest of the points bifurcation are: semi-finals (350), quarter-finals (275) and pre-quarter-finals (192). Ishaan Bhatnagar and Vishnuvardhan Goud will be leading India’s challenge in the boys’ doubles section. Aditi Bhatt and Tanisha Crasto will be the ones to watch in girls’ doubles as they topped the points table with 926 points while the in-form  pair of K Dingku Sing and Ritika Thakkar will be India’s main stay in the mixed doubles. At the previous edition held in Indonesia, India won gold after 54 years, courtesy Lakshya Sen who won the Boys' singles title. The Coaching team will be headed by Junior National Coach, Sanjay Mishra and former India players Chetan Anand and Arun Vishnu among others as coaches. The Indian team will be undergoing a camp for fifteen days starting July 3 in Panchkula, Haryana.

The Squad

Sr No	Name	State/Org	Sr No	Name	State/Org
	BOYS			GIRLS
1.	Maisnam Meiraba	AAI	1.	Malvika Bansod	AAI
2.	Sathish Kumar K	TN	2.	Ashi Rawat	DLI
3.	Sidhanth Gupta	TN	3.	Samiya Imad Farooqui	TS
4.	S. Muthuswamy	TN	4.	Unnati Bishth	UTR
5.	Ishaan Bhatnagar	CG	5.	Aditi Bhatt	UTR
6.	VishnuvardhanGoud	TS	6.	Tanisha Crasto	GOA
7.	Manjit Singh	MNP	7.	Treesa Jolly	KER
8.	K. Dingku Sing	MNP	8.	VS Varshini	TN
9.	P.S Ravi Krishna	KER	9.	Simran Singhi	MAH
10.	Manav Raj Smith	KER	10.	Ritika Thakkar	MAH
11.	Edwin Joy	KER	11.	Shruti Mishra	UP
			12.	Riza Mahreen	KER
	COACHES			SUPPORT STAFF
1.	Sanjay Mishra	Junior Chief Coach	1.	Manpreet Hora	Physio
2.	Arun Vishnu	Coach	2.	Astha Kulshreshtha	Physio
3.	Sayali Gokhale	Coach
4.	Sachin Rana	Coach
5.	Chetan Anand	Coach
6.	T Maran	Coach