Unnati Hooda thread

[Saffron Lenin]

Unnati Hooda wins her second BWF title

The 16-year-old Unnati Hooda took 40 minutes to defeat the 20-year-old Samiya Imad Farooqui 21-16, 22-20 on the badminton courts of the ADNEC Marina Hall in the UAE capital. Both players are currently outside the top 100 in the badminton rankings.

This was Unnati Hooda’s second BWF Super 100 World Tour title. Last year, Unnati Hooda became the youngest Indian to win a BWF tournament at the Odisha Open.


https://olympics.com/en/news/abu-dhabi- ... da-results

[jayakris]

Is a thread for Unnati justified? She is only #45 in the world junior rankings (where India has 3 in the top-7). Actually for those like Tasnim and Anupama who were #1 last year, down a bit but ahead of Unnati now, we never started threads.

Badminton experts, please comment.

[pancakesdonuts]

Is a thread for Unnati justified? She is only #45 in the world junior rankings (where India has 3 in the top-7). Actually for those like Tasnim and Anupama who were #1 last year, down a bit but ahead of Unnati now, we never started threads.

Badminton experts, please comment.

She was in top-5 junior rankings last year. You need to play junior tournaments to rake ranking points which she doesn't play anymore and senior tourney points are capped at 3 max in consideration of junior rankings. And junior rankings are highly skewed. Half the junior tournaments happening around the world are not competitive at all (europe/africa/americas). So, an average junior player from Asia can easily win those tournaments and become top-10 in junior rankings. Btw Unnati will enter top-100 in senior rankings this week.

IMO she is the biggest prospect for India in WS. I also don't know if this thread is justifiable. But i completely agree that players like Tasnim and other junior prospects like Sankar Subramanian and Anupama deserve their own threads too. Cheers!

[arjun2761]

She is potentially our next great one! A lot closer to greatness than Manas Dhamne is.

[SaniaFan]

I agree with everything written above. She defeated Malvika Bansod as a 14yo.
But then we are very conservative with threads for our Badminton players as compared to our tennis players. So should we wait for result as well and not just go with potential?

[jayakris]

If all of you feel so positive about Unnati, let the thread stay. Can we have winning a BWF title (what level event?) as a criterion for a thread for a junior player?

[jayakris]

She is potentially our next great one! A lot closer to greatness than Manas Dhamne is.

Yeah, that thread should not have been made (when Manas was just 12 years old!)... Sameer did raise an eyebrow, but I was a pushover and let PKB get his way... we didn't remove it after he went and started it

[sameerph]

I too think that Unnati looks our best prospect for womens singles and is a better prospect than say Anupama or Tasnim. They are yet to win a BWF title I think.

Still too early to say if she has the potential to reach Sindhu or Saina level. I have not compared as to what they were doing at same as Unnati.

But yes winning a BWF title should be a criterion for a badminton player. Unnati won the lowest level now ( BWF 100) which I will put as a parallel to winning a challenger title in Tennis or a W100 title in Women.

In Tennis we generally have a idea of winning a futures title as criteria which is probably equal only to international series or international challenge level titles as parallel in Badminton. But, Tennis is much more competitive internationally. So, that is fair as such.

[pancakesdonuts]

If all of you feel so positive about Unnati, let the thread stay. Can we have winning a BWF title (what level event?) as a criterion for a thread for a junior player?

You are right. It's very rare to see junior players winning super 100 level tournaments. Only 1 junior player have won super 100 title aside from Unnati this year.

[Sin Hombre]

I don’t hate keeping this thread up, but we should wait until a BWF300 win imo.

Treesa and Gayatri don’t have a thread yet.

[Saffron Lenin]

Treesa and Gayatri don’t have a thread yet.

Should I make a thread on them? Or Should we wait?

[jayakris]

Do Treesa or Gayatri have a BWF300 title? If not, let us not start.

[rajitghosh]

No. They have a Super 100 and they were runners up at the Syed Modi Super 300. Of course they reached the All England semi finals twice and have a Commonwealth Games bronze apart from team event medals. They certainly deserve a thread.
In women's singles I hope at least one out of Unnati Hooda, Tasnim Mir, Imad Samiya, Malvika Bansod and Tanvi Sharma make it big. More than one would be great.

[SaniaFan]

Malvika is already 22 so not so bullish on her chances but Tanvi and Unnati are really young at 14 and 16 years. Tasnim is 18. Others are around 20 years and have only few more years to show breakout.

To compare, Saina already had an Olympic bronze at 22. She was world no. 2 and had multiple Asian bronze by the time she was 20yrs. BWF declared her as the most promising female player at 19yrs. She was World Junior champion at 18 yrs. I am not sure of Sindhu's junior record but in seniors she started doing wonders at an age even younger than Saina.

[Sin Hombre]

PVS had broken into the top-20 at 17, won a WC bronze and a Super500 level tournament at 18.

I think the bar in badminton is clearly higher and neither Unnati nor Treesa/Gayatri meet it yet.

Prannoy has long met it but somehow doesn’t have a thread which is bizarre.