CHENNAI: In her free time, 15-year-old badminton player Tanvi Patri indulges in building lego blocks, playing dominoes and other puzzles. In her time in China, she was figure skating at weekends, something she believed has helped her with the flexibility while playing the sport.
While putting together lego blocks brings her joy, she recently placed an important block in her career — a Youth Olympics medal in badminton, which no Indian woman has ever won before.
But life has not been easy for her in the past 12 months as she was forced to spend more time in the medical room than the courts. Injuries to knee and hamstring late last year and a disc bulge earlier this year, she has already had her share of injuries at such a young age. To add onto it, she fell ill in the lead-up to October’s BWF World Junior Championships in Egypt. She was knocked out in the round of 16 by Japan’s Nijika Kamata there.
But Tanvi was not going to let her year be filled with regrets. The 15-year-old seized the opportunity despite battling sickness and poor lodging in Dakar, Senegal and captured silver. She went down to Chinese Junior World champion Zhang Yi Xin 21-15, 13-21, 24-26 in the final. “Before going, I only got to train for two days. If I played positively from the start, I could have won. But with the silver, I knew this was just the beginning. I should be focusing on the Olympics. This is just a bonus for me. I was happy with my performance, because I gave my best and did not give up,” she said in a virtual interaction facilitated by Badminton Association of India (BAI).
Her association with the sport began in China at seven, when her father took her to a club to play badminton. “I used to go with him to play doubles and then we met one coach, I think then he told us to join his academy, so it started like that,” she recalled. But what convinced her to take badminton up full-time? “I just went for an open tournament there, and in that tournament, I think I lost. A month later, there was another tournament and I won the tournament. At that time, my Chinese coaches (Xu and Wu) felt I could pursue this,” she said.
She revealed that she is still in touch with one of the coaches. “Coach Xu passed away last year. I still keep in touch with coach Wu. Both of them have helped me a lot in improving my technique, footwork, and action. The one advice coach Xu gave me was: you should always focus on your techniques first. Just don't go play hundreds of shuttlecocks at a time. First, you should be focusing on your actions,” Patri, who now trains at the Centre of Badminton Excellence in Bengaluru, said.
Going forward, Patri knows that there is a lot more work to be done. “Competing at the Youth Olympics was really special, and I gained so much confidence from it. For future tournaments, I am just focusing on trying not to target too much onto the lines and play shots in the box. I should just try to give my best in all the future tournaments. I should work more on accuracy and more on my strength and physical condition also, and my health,” she signed off.