Unnati Hooda, Anmol Kharb, Tanvi Sharma: Indian badminton's women's singles revival looks imminent

Indian Express

20 hours ago

Why be the next Sindhu, when you can be better than Sindhu? Or pragmatically, how can anyone compare with PV Sindhu who at 18, won a World Championship bronze and at 21 was an Olympic silver medallist?
As India won medals at the Junior Asian Championships, for the first time in 13 years since Sindhu won gold in 2012, women's singles revival looked imminent.
For better or worse, Indian badminton's big rumble is going to continue in women's singles. Results over the last season are clear indicators that the story started by Saina Nehwal in 2006, which peaked with Sindhu in 2016, will dominate chatter in 2026 – India's exciting emergence in women's singles.
The doubles is tougher to crack, a far steeper challenge at the Top-8 elite level — and Treesa-Gayatri will need to trudge that pebbled path with crunch under the wheels. Men's singles has a continuum with Lakshya Sen, a still-not-finished HS Prannoy and Kidambi Srikanth who made the Malaysia Masters final, easily India's best result, and some serious talent in Ayush Shetty, Sathish Kumar Karunakaran and Sankar Muthusamy Subramaniam. Tharun Mannepalli might spring an underrated surprise. And Satwik-Chirag are going nowhere without fulfilling their destiny to perhaps become India's greatest men's players.
Women's singles – even independent of the shadow of PV Sindhu – however, is headed for a boom and some bluster. Mercifully, not centred around one solitary character. Much of Sindhu's rise came tied in with Saina Nehwal's. Their prickly rivalry helped both in terms of raising expectations of themselves. Literal FOMO – of winning the World Championship or Olympic medal, a better colored medal, big tournament finals, multisport Games podiums – led to fortuitous raising of individual ambitions, and jealousy nicely channelised into joyous upmanship.
India happily pocketed an aggregate of their medals.
It's different for the next bunch – not quite a two-horse race. They're comfortable stepping out of the Sindhu shadow, knowing they are miles away from her in age and capability at present, and under no pressure to directly compare with her. And given their built – not many as tall as her or powerful – their games are more well-rounded with the awareness that their smash when hit, won't stay hit, might get retrieved, and they need to work harder, smarter to find their niche – for it's not in the long-levered reach or natural power. Game-intelligence is a necessity for them to survive, not optional, or something that can be deferred. Good defence is a prerequisite.
Though, you just cannot separate personality from the person in women's singles, and each of the new names will carve their individual identities in the next three seasons. This individuality and confidence (some call it 'attitude'), even if it appears like a chip on the shoulder, needs to be encouraged, not tamed or trimmed into disciplined straitjackets. This is India, chaotic but diverse, and it ought to reflect in every single women's singles shuttler. For that's precisely how Saina, Sindhu, Srikanth, Prannoy, Sai Praneeth and Lakshya Sen came up. Different games, varied temperaments.
Leave assembly-line productions and pedantic factory settings and specifications to car-makers.
So, you have Unnati Hooda – the first Indian in five years to beat PV Sindhu. She has resisted getting into any big academy, refused to stop playing doubles which helps her singles game (just like Srikanth), stays unfazed by reputations and isn't overtly respectful of rankings. Defeating Sindhu at the China Open might have sent down tremors in the system, but Hooda herself doesn't believe in the tripe of passing the baton.
For a 17-year-old, she had immense clarity and a bit of that famous broader Haryanvi comprehension of sport when she told The Indian Express: 'We have to compete with the whole world, not just Sindhu.' She aces academics, comes from a family of PhD holders, reads complex psycho-thrillers, defends shuttles fluently, has a kill shot and nous to construct a rally. The net game can be rubbish on days, but she will find solutions and stay aggressive.
Equally fearless and adept at court-craft, at 17, is Anmol Kharb who won national Championships two seasons ago, has an extremely intricate cerebral game, works very hard, and fears no one. On the international circuit, she will take her time to develop, but the game will be solid and temperamentally sound, built on repetitions and precision and out-thinking of opponents. She loves the sport, and has trained in martial arts which makes her solid and pretty scientific.
Tanvi Sharma made finals at the US Open, and was compared to Sindhu by her coach Park Tae-sang, and to Saina by Gillian Clark, the intrepid commentator. Her game has aggression, stroke variety, the familiar tentativeness at the net and clean crisp hitting ability, which again compensates for not being tall built like Sindhu. Technically she is turning out to be mighty sound, but all three will need to combat the very real prospect of opponents hitting the next gear and out-gunning them with power and pace. Endurance levels can be topped up in all three cases.
Also, there and thereabouts are Anupama Upadhyaya, Isharani Baruah and the original disruptor Malvika Bansod (23), not a teenager like the rest, but earnest, and a solution-finder, ever since she defeated Saina Nehwal and reached the Top 35. They all have glaring limitations in their games – Upadhyaya can rally reliably but needs a stronger kill shot, Isharani has speed, deception and a jump smash, but isn't very compact in defence and temperamentally. Malvika needs a serious next gear in strength and some serious wickedness and urgency to push herself into the Top 20.
On the periphery are the three tall youngsters, Devika Sihag, Rakshitha Ramraj and Vennala Kalagotla, a revelation this week. Vennala happily straddles singles and both doubles, and has a zip and punch to her strokes that screams potential. Playing Chinese Liu Si Ya at the Asian juniors on Saturday, she calmly waded out of these match point situations though she lost in straight sets. She was barely pencilled in for singles, and might still prove to be a fine doubles shuttler.
Devika Sihag has come through junior ranks, and perhaps enjoys the most developmental support amongst all of them with sports science, coaching and exposure like Lakshya Sen benefited from. She's tall and rangy, and will stomp onto the scene sooner than later. Rakshitha perhaps has the most understated game, which could actually explode once she leaves the naivete and niceness behind, and gets a little aggressive naturally. It's a bit like younger, mild-mannered Sindhu who needed to be taught to scream, shout and generally din away.
Tanvi Patri, still a sub-junior, played badminton in China (where her father, a software professional was posted) in her early years, and how she navigates her progress in India, remains to be seen. But the game is elegant. Shriyanshi Valishetty is another name, where the game will do the talking.
Much like later-day Sindhu and Saina, none of them are overtly comfortable being hemmed in by a standardised coaching system – like happens in China. Calls to herd them all together and get Sindhu's coach Irwansyah to train them collectively will spectacularly fail, because neither Saina nor Sindhu herself stood by that particular precedent. Their mistakes, their responsibility, their plaudits, their careers.
This will be a wild, non-structured, unpredictable transition in women's singles, where these young women will choose their own paths, make their own decisions, shepherded by parents and their own instincts. No wise person will impose their will on them, except for gently advising them and offering them what they ought to receive as guidance and help in personnel while bluntly telling them if they wander off the path to success. It's how Gen Z will get coached.
The 'star' system is one of the unsavoury legacies of the Saina-Sindhu era, but what the Hoodas, Kharbs, Sihags and Sharmas are asking for is autonomy over their careers, and not having to submerge individual ambitions. One size clearly doesn't fit all, nor is Sindhu's the only path to be followed, given that most of them aren't built like her. If you ask Unnati or Anmol or Tanvi – we actually did – they will even say, there's no baton being passed here and the legends can keep the baton, thank you, for this is not a relay nor some anachronistic succession.
They will seek to beat Sindhu of course, but nobody is under any illusion that the real opponents are not the Yamaguchis, Miyazakis, Tunjungs, Wang Zhi Yis and An Se-youngs.