Badminton World Junior Championships: Unnati Hooda, Ayush Shetty lead India's domination in individual events

Rising stars Unnati Hooda and Ayush Shetty put up impressive performances as Indian shuttlers made a dominating start to the individual events at the BWF Badminton World Junior Championships in Spokane, USA.

Unnati, the 2022 Odisha Open champion, displayed her prowess to register a resounding 21-7, 21-11 victory against Tahiti's Heirautea Curet in the opening round of the girls singles match.

Ayush, on the other hand, also secured a convincing 21-6, 21-13 win against Italy's Simone Piccinin in the boys singles first round.

Tushar Suveer, Devika Sihag and Lokesh Shetty Kalagotla were the other three Indians who also entered the singles round of 64. Tushar defeated Andrei Schmidt of Estonia by 21-12, 21-15 while Lokesh received a walkover in the boys section whereas Devika defeated Elisaveta Berik of Estonia by 21-13, 21-9 in the girls' singles match. The Indian shuttlers are backed by BAI, SAI, REC and Yonex.

This came after the pairs of Sathwik Reddy Kanapuram-Vaishnavi Khadkekar and Samarveer-Radhika Sharma provided India a winning start with the contrasting victories in the opening round of mixed doubles category.

While the duo of Sathwik and Vaishnavi notched up a commanding 21-4, 21-7 win over Artyom Hakobyan and Ani Sahakyan of Armenia, Samarveer and Radhika had to work hard during their 21-16, 17-21, 21-14 win over Chen Yong Rui and Jiang Pei Xi of China in a closely contested match.

Meanwhile in the boys' doubles event, Divyam Arora and Mayank Rana defeated the Norwegian pair of Filip Boehn and Sander Oesthassel by 21-13, 21-14.

Earlier, India finished seventh in the mixed team event.

The round of 64 matches for the individual events will be played later tonight.