Unnati Hooda, Anupama Upadhyaya to spearhead Indian challenge in Jr Badminton World Championships

The Indian team for the prestigious tournament, to be held after a gap of two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, was picked after a thorough selection process that included two All India Ranking tournaments and a selection trial in Raipur. Unnati had topped the girls singles trials with S Rakshita Sree and Anupama finishing second and third respectively. In-form Bharat Raghav, who won both the All Indian ranking titles in Goa and Panchkula and former junior world No.

1 Sankar Muthusamy, will be India's best bet in the boy's singles category with Ayush Shetty completing the line up. India has so far won one gold, three silver and five bronze medals in the competition with reigning Commonwealth Games gold medallist Lakshya Sen being the last Indian to stand on the podium by bagging a bronze in 2018. "The junior world championships are happening after a long gap and with new players emerging the team has been selected after an extensive selection trials," said Badminton Association of India (BAI) secretary Sanjay Mishra.

"We are confident that we would be challenging for medals in the mixed team championships and also the individual events," he added. The event will start with the mixed team event. India will also field two pairs each in the men's and women's doubles and mixed doubles events.

The new combination of Arsh Mohammad and Abhinav Thakur along with Nicholas Nathan Raj and Tushar Suveer will shoulder the men's doubles responsibility. In women's doubles, All India ranking meet winners in Goa -- Ishrani Baruah and Devika Sihag -- will be joined by Tamil Nadu's Shreya Balaji and Srinidhi N, who helped their state win the South Zone U19 mixed team title recently. India squad: Boy's singles: Bharat Raghav, Sankar