Badminton in India: Meet Tanvi Patri: The Sindhu-esque talent with Olympic medal potential

Thirteen-year-old Tanvi Patri from Odisha cemented her status as one of India’s most promising badminton prodigies by winning the girls’ singles title at the U-15 Badminton Asia U-17 & U-15 Junior Championships in Chengdu, China, the country where she first honed her skills in the sport. Patri capped off a phenomenal week with a superlative performance by beating Vietnam’s second seed Thi Thu Huyen Nguyen 22-20, 21-11 in a 34-minute final, providing a glimmer of hope after Indian badminton’s recent struggles at the Paris Olympics.

“I feel good after winning the title,” Patri told PTI from Chengdu.

“I expected to win and I am happy that I could do that. I have been training at the Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy (PPBA) in Bangalore for the past two years.”

Patri showed remarkable resilience and fought back from an 11-17 deficit in the opening match to win the title without losing a single game during the tournament.

Her parents, Rabinarayan Patri and Sailabala Panda, are software professionals and previously worked in China, where she first started playing badminton.

The family returned to India in 2020 following the COVID-19 pandemic. PPBA Director Vimal Kumar sees a lot of potential in Tanvi, even drawing comparisons with the early days of PV Sindhu, one of India’s most celebrated badminton players. “She was around eight or nine when she moved to India and joined the academy in 2022,” Vimal said.

“She reminds me of Sindhu when she was young. The ability to win matches at a young age is a good sign. She has a long way to go and with her temperament she has a lot of potential.”

Rabinarayan, a work-from-home software engineer, accompanies Patri to the academy. In November 2022, he drove 1,400 km from Bengaluru to Balangir for Patri’s participation in the state sub-junior badminton tournament.

“She is way ahead of her age group,” Vimal noted.

“Over the past six months, she has won U-17 tournaments and defeated several senior players including the current national championship finalist, Tanvi Sharma.

“If her strength improves and she continues to develop, she could be a good contender for the 2028 or 2032 Olympics.”

Patri, who is also fond of skating, started her badminton training under Chinese coach Jiang Yong Yi and won nine titles in China between 2017 and 2020. After returning to India, she was spotted by PPBA during a camp and joined the academy in March 2022.

She went on to win both the U-15 and U-17 girls’ singles titles at the All India sub-junior ranking tournaments in Hyderabad in June and Mapusa, Goa, in May this year.

Tanvi also won the gold medal at the 35th Sub-Junior National Championships in Balangir, Odisha last November and became the first shuttler from Odisha to win the girls’ singles title at the 34th Sub-Junior (U-13) National Championships in Lucknow in 2022.

Patri, an eighth-grader, reached the quarterfinals at the German Junior International in Berlin in March.