Indian shuttler S Sankar Muthusamy Subramanian entered the men's singles final of the BWF World Junior Championships 2022 with a 21-13, 21-15 win over Thailand's Panitchapon Teeraratsakul in the semi-finals at Santandar, Spain on Saturday.
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With this win, Sankar became the first Indian badminton player after Siril Verma in 2016 to make it to the finals of the World Junior Badminton Championships. He is only the second Indian to reach the final in the boys singles category. Overall, he became the fourth Indian after Aparna Popat, Saina Nehwal, and Siril to reach the finals. Notably, former world No. 1 Saina so far remains India's only junior badminton world champion. She had won the women's singles title in 2008.
Teeraratsakul clearly enjoys the advantages of height and an extended reach, despite being one of the world's leading champions. In contrast, Subramanian looked to take the game to his opponent and score points early.
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Under heavy pressure, the 17-year-old Indian worked his angles well and made good use of his clever shuttle placement to get the first game comfortably. The Thai shuttler picked up the extra pace and style to spoil the Indian shuttler's technical style in the second game. Tried to put in the power but Shankar did well to keep the pace. His consistent returns disappointed the Thai player as he started making unforced errors and often kept his shots out of the scoring line.
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Sankar settled the matter of 40 minutes in straight games. Earlier, Shankar defeated Chinese legend Hu Zhe An in the quarterfinal match to secure his place in the semi-final match. He will Chinese Taipei's Kuan Lin Kuo in the final on Sunday. Sankar's only goal now is to repeat Saina Nehwal's historic gold medal win in the BWF World Junior Championships 2022.