Jr Badminton Worlds: Sankar Muthusamy takes home silver

Santander (Spain), October 30

Sankar Muthusamy’s dream run in the BWF World Junior Championships came to an end today when he lost the Under-19 singles final to Chinese Taipei’s Kuo Kuan Lin.

The fourth-seeded Indian saved six match points in the second game but lost the final 14-21 20-22, becoming only the fourth Indian to win a silver medal in the history of the competition. Aparna Popat (1996), Saina Nehwal (2006) and Siril Verma (2015) are the other silver medallists from India in the tournament. Saina reached the final for the second time in 2008 and won the world title and remains the only Indian to win the world junior crown.

Knowing well that Muthusamy has the ability to play marathon matches, Kuo clearly had an aggressive strategy going into the final. The Indian countered it well in the opening game to fight back from 6-10 down to make it 13-13.

However, Kuo used his deceptive strokes to keep his opponent on his toes to clinch eight of the next nine points to draw first blood.

It looked like Kuo would race to the crown after opening up a 20-14 lead in the second game. But Muthusamy fought back and Kuo ended up making many errors, raising the hopes of the Indian fans. But Kuo found another gear at 20-20 to clinch the next two points with big smashes to win the title.