WTT Youth Contender Vadodara: Jennifer, Balamurugan, Ananya and Ritvik strike gold

Jennifer Varghese and Balamurugan Rajasekaran beat the in-form Taneesha Kotecha and Preyesh Suresh in the U/19 mixed doubles event, at the WTT Youth Contender Vadodara 2025, on Friday.

Even though the score line reads 3-2 (11/7,9/11,11/8,1/11,12/10), the pair never really looked like they were in any trouble, with both Jennifer and Balamurugan believing that they could win.

The fourth set would have rattled any team after losing 1/11 but not Jennifer and Balamurugan as they quickly dusted it off. The pair found a way to foil Preyesh’s control and Taneesha’s hard-hitting cross court shots to take home the gold.

In the second finals of the day, Ananya Muralidharan and Ritvik Gupta beat Divyanshi Bhowmick and Sahil Rawat by barest or margins to win the U/15 mixed doubles event. The score line of 3-2 does complete justice to how close the match was. Each time it looked like Divyanshi/Sahil were going to run away with the match, their opponents found a way to claw back into the contest eventually winning 3-2 and 13-11 in the decider. The winning pair had to work extremely hard for each point but finally found a way to convert to be on the right side of the competition.

The WTT Youth Contender Vadodara 2025 also kicked off the group stages for the U/19 and U/15 categories for the boys and girls today with Ankur Bhattacharjee and Sayali Wani looking to defend their top ranking. The U/11 and U/15 categories have also commenced with predominantly Indians and Sri Lankans in the draw.

The day started with the group stages of the U/15 boys with Shouren Soman, the highest ranked in the draw winning both of his matches to qualify into the main draw. Sahil Rawat, the runner-up of the U/17 boys started his campaign with two wins in the group stages and will definitely be looking to change the result of the finals.

Divyanshi Bhowmick, who is ranked 29 in the world, had a similar start to her group matches as she topped the group easily. The current favourite for the event, Divyanshi is looking to carry the momentum of her win in the U/17 to take home the U/15 as well.

The group matches of the U/19 boys saw some close matches as the boys competed but there were no notable upsets moving into the main draw. Ankur Bhattacharjee looked his best as he won both of his matches in the group. Second seed, Choi Jiwook had a similar outing as he moved to the main draw easily as well.

The last day of the event tomorrow will witness the finals of six events, U/11 boys and girls, U/15 boys and girls and the U/19 boys and girls’ singles event as the WTT Youth Contender Vadodara moves into its final day.