Badminton Asia Junior Championships 2022: India's Unnati Hooda confirms medal after reaching to the semifinals

India's star shuttler Unnati Hooda on Friday confirmed a medal for the country by reaching the semi-finals of the Badminton Asia Junior Championships 2022 U17 and U15 in Nonthaburi, Thailand.

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Unnati ranked fourth in the junior world rankings. She continued her impressive run to beat Min Ji Kim of South Korea in straight games 21-15 21-18 in the quarter-finals of the U17 women's singles. Top seed Unnati will now face Japan's Milon Yokouchi in the semis.

At the same time, Gnana Dattu and Anish Thoppani also marched into the semi-finals to assure themselves a medal at the Badminton Asia Junior Championships 2022. Apart from this singles trio, the doubles pair of Arsh Mohammad-Sanskar Saraswat and Bjorn Jaison and Aathish Sreenivas PV also reached the last four to assure a medal for the country. They pulled off a hard-fought 24-22, 20-22, 21-15 win over Indonesia's Nawaf Khoiriyansyah and Adriel Leonardo.

Earlier, Indian shuttlers had won five medals in 2018 while they won two in the 2019 season. This prestigious continental tournament is being organized after two years due to the Coronavirus epidemic.

Meanwhile, Dattu and Anish registered victories against their Indonesian opponents in the U15 men's singles last-eight tie. Dattu and Anish had to fight hard against their Indonesian opponents in the last 8 matches. They won the match in three sets. Seventh seed Dattu beat fourth seed Radithya Wardhana 21-11 13-21 21-11. While Anish got the better of fifth seed Glend Rumondor 22-20 19-21 21-12. Dattu and Anish will take on Chinese Taipei'sChung-Hsiang Yih and Lee Yu-Jui respectively in the semi-finals.

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Later in the day, the pair of Bjorn and Aathish won the U15 men's doubles 16-21, 21-12, 21-17. They beat Chinese Taipei's Sheng-Ming Lin and Chla-Yu Tsai to win the second doubles medal for India. Meanwhile, the U17 mixed doubles pair of Mayank Rana and Jiya Rawat and the U15 women's doubles pair of Tanvi Andluri and Durga Kandrapu ended their campaign with quarterfinal losses.