Asian Youth TT: India wins bronze medal in U-15, U-19 boys team events

The Indian U-15 and U-19 boys' teams finished with a bronze medal at the 27th Asian Youth 2023 in Doha, Qatar on Wednesday.

The two teams failed to cross the semifinal hurdles and ended up with the bronze medals from the outing, a qualification event for the World Youth Championships in Slovenia in December.

While the boy's team won bronze, the U-15 girls lost in the quarterfinals 0-3 to Japan and the U-19 girls also lost to Japan 1-3.

In the Under-15 category, PB Abhinand beat Le Ellsworth of Singapore 11-9, 11-5, 11-7 to set the ball in motion. Priyanuj Bhattacharyya dropped a game but then made a fantastic comeback against Xing Yao to win 11-8, 9-11, 11-5, 12-10, and the two Indians struggled against the pair of Irle Eles and Zhou Jinghe but won 11-8, 11-5, 7-11, 6-11, 11-7.

In the semi-final on Wednesday, they went down 0-3 to China.

The U-19 boys had a tough time against Hong Kong as the quarterfinal went down till the last match in which Jash Modi turned the tables against Yiu Kwan to win 6-11, 10-12, 11-8, 11-8, 11-2.

Modi, who lost his opening tie to Chan Baldwin Ho Wah 8-11, 5-11, 5-11, lost the first two games to Yiu before pulling up his socks to outwit him and put India in the semi-final.

Earlier, Ankur Bhattacharjee beat Yiu 11-8, 11-8. 11-7 before Divyansh Srivastava defeated Li Hon Man 11-6, 11-8, 8-11, 12-10 to seal the fate of Hong Kong players.

Like their juniors, the U-16 boys met championship favorites China in the semi-final and lost 0-3. In position matches, the Under-19 girls finished seventh after beating Iran 3-0.