Tanvi Sharma, the teen rewriting India’s badminton story like Saina Nehwal

Saina Nehwal achieved in 2008 what many would have thought impossible at that time – becoming a BWF World Junior Champion. Since then, badminton in India has seen many highs. But in recent times, the results have been rather underwhelming, with star shuttlers failing to deliver on the big stage and the young ones taking longer than expected to find their feet. In this scenario, two youngsters managed to grab the imagination of Indian badminton fans — Unnati Hooda and Tanvi Sharma. While the former played a major role in helping India grab a historic bronze in the team event of the recent BWF World Junior Championships in Guwahati, Tanvi became the first Indian female after Saina to grab a medal at the world junior meet after a gap of 17 long years. She is also the current junior world No. 1 and had made the finals of the US Open Super 300 earlier this year. Naturally, the talk has started about whether Tanvi can become one of the next big stars of Indian badminton like Saina and PV Sindhu. Having grown up watching them play, Tanvi naturally looked up to them, falling in love with their game and success. “I really like Sindhu didi’s aggression on the court, how she plays, how she shouts after every point, and she doesn’t look nervous at all. I love that attitude,” Tanvi tells TOI during an exclusive interaction. But it is Taiwanese shuttler Tai Tzu-ying, whose style she loves the most and wants to imbibe in her own play. “Her game is very deceptive and I keep asking my coach every day how to do those things. I have already learned the forehand slice from watching her matches,” she adds. Tanvi has time to perfect those, but for now, she will need to improve in several other areas to reach the next level. “I will have to work on my fitness, court endurance, and my net skills to go to the next level because playing at the highest level is not easy,” the 16-year-old says. Post-Guwahati, her next challenge will be putting up a good show at the Asian Youth Games currently on in Bahrain, where she plays her opening game on Oct 27. After her recent showing, she is aware of the high expectations and wants to continue giving her best. Few know that young Tanvi started off as a budding judoka, but it was on watching her mother, Meena, play a game of badminton with her sister Radhika at their home in Punjab’s Hoshiarpur that she became hooked. Once Tanvi held the racket, there was no looking back. The sisters had talent and, under the early guidance of Meena, trained diligently. When Radhika began training at the Gopichand Academy a few months later, Tanvi, then just six years old, followed suit. A resident-trainee, Tanvi was molded for six years and, on her return, began playing in national as well as international events. “It was at this time that I wanted to take up the sport professionally and decided to train at the National Centre of Excellence in Guwahati,” she reveals. At NCE, she got the chance to train under coach Park Tae-sang, the South Korean who sat courtside and cheered the Indian on at the world junior meet. “I love training with him. He’s funny and sometimes very strict. He sometimes shouts also, but I don’t feel like I’m getting scolded or something,” she adds with a child’s chuckle. Tae-sang’s influence was evident throughout Tanvi’s matches, and it was his words from the sidelines that pushed her through the quarterfinal against Japan’s Saki Matsumoto, assuring her of a medal. “During the match I had lost the first game and won the second. But in the decider, I was down 5-8. It was then that my coach told me to display everything because this opportunity won't come,” Tanvi recalls. She did exactly that to win the game from there at 15-10. She took the match, and also experiencing the first brushes of pressure in her nascent career, she broke down on the court. It was quite an emotional moment for Tanvi, something she won’t forget anytime soon, and with continued support and hard work, she is likely to experience many more such days of joy in the future too.