India to send 32 players for Asian Junior individual championship

CHENNAI: As many as 32 Indians - 16 boys and as many girls - will be taking part in the Asian Junior individual squash championship to be hosted by Iran from August 23 to 27.

This big participation is a reflection of the growing pool of young talents in the country, the Squash Racquet Federation of India (SRFI) said in a media release.

The list has several tested youngsters including those who had taken part in the world junior championship held in The Netherlands and the various winners of the recent NSCI four-star event held in Mumbai.

Another feature is that all of them have been seeded in their respective age categories with Navaneeth Prabhu and Megha Bhatia given the top billing in the U-13 boys' and girls' sections respectively.

Other players seeded are:

Boys: U-13: Neel Joshi (6), Tanay Punjabi (9), Shreemann Raghavan (11); U-15: Tushar Shahani (3), Saksham Choudhary (6), Rahul Baitha (7),Veer Chotrani (10); U-17:Adhitya Raghavan (8), Vikas Mehra (9), Robin Singh Mann (10), Abhay Singh (12); U-19: Velavan Senthilkumar (5), Sandeep Ramachandran (8), Mudit Pant (10), Harshvardhan Wadhwa (18).

Girls: U-13: Ananya Dabke (3), Avani Nagar (6), Aryaa Ogale (8); U-15: Samita Sivakumar (5), Navmi Sharma (6), J.S. Krithica (9), Jannia singh (11); U-17: Akanksha Salunkhe (5), Nikita Joshi (6), Asita Pranaya Bhengra (8), Sunayna Kuruvilla (10); U-19: Adya Advani (5), Harshit Jawanda (6), Jui Kalgutkar (8), Aishwarya Bhattacharya (9) In the last edition following were the highlights from the Indian point of view: Girls 17 - Harshit Kaur Jawanda lost in semifinals; Boys 13 - Veer Chotrani won the final; Boys 13 - Navaneeth Prabhu lost in semifinals and Girls 13 - Samita Sivakumar lost in semifinals.