Chennai: The Badminton Association of India (BAI) has announced the 20-member junior Indian squad that is set to participate at the Dutch Junior International from 27 February to 3 March and the German Junior 2019 from 7 – 10 March.
Manipur’s Maisnam Meiraba Luwang will be leading the boys’ singles challenge by virtue of the 1192 points that he amassed following his title wins at the All-India Junior Ranking Badminton Tournaments in Vijayawada and Bangalore. The girls’ team will be spearheaded by the 2017 U-15 Asian Junior Championships gold medallist Samiya Imad Farooqui who logged in 1125 points in the ranking tournaments.
BAI considered the cumulative ranking points from the three All India Junior Ranking tournaments held in Vijayawada, Bangalore and Jaipur in the month of January. Meiraba is joined by Andhra Pradesh’s Sai Charan Koya, Priyanshu Rajawat of Dhar in Madhya Pradesh and Sathish Kumar from Coimbatore.
In girls’ singles, Farooqui is joined by Gayatri Gopichand, Nashik girl Smit Toshniwal and Amolika Singh hailing from Uttar Pradesh.
The winner of each leg 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 Edwin Joy will be leading India’s challenge in the boys’ doubles section. Treesa Jolly and Varshini VS will be the ones to watch in girls’ doubles while the in-form Navaneeth Bokka and Sahithi Bandi, who swept the three ranking events, will be India’s top team in mixed doubles. Last year India won the boys’ doubles silver medal at the Dutch Junior when the talented duo of Krishna Prasad Garaga and Dhruv Kapila finished as the runners-up.