The Junior World Championships, held in the city of Nanchang, China, have entered their second week. Following the team competition, which saw Indonesia emerge victorious, the battle for individual gold medals now begins. At Badminton Today, we have taken on the task of introducing the favorites in all five events, as well as highlighting a few players who might cause serious surprises. In this first part, we will cover the girls’ and boys’ singles events, and later we will also focus on the three doubles events.
Let’s start with the girls’ singles:
The world number one junior player, Tomoka Miyazaki, is not participating in the tournament, as the 2022 champion is already considered an elite player in the adult category and is competing this week at the Super 500 World Tour event in Finland. However, the defending champion Pitchamon Opatniputh is present, and she will still be eligible for junior competitions next year. The Thai girl is one of the big favorites for this year’s tournament, but she will face plenty of challengers. Expectations are also high for another Thai player, Sarunrak Vitidsarn, whose brother is a three-time junior world champion and has already reached the gold in the adult category last year. China’s great hope is Xu Wen Jing, who won gold at this year’s Junior Asian Championships, but last year’s champion of that same tournament, Mutiara Ayu Puspitasari, is also among the favorites. The Indonesian girl became one of the heroes of the team competition, so she will likely enter the individual events with great confidence.
In this event, I would mention the American Ella Lin, who shone in the team competition, and the Bulgarian Olympian, Kaloyana Nalbantova, as dark horses. However, both players are in the same quarter of the draw, and they will also have to contend with Japan’s 15-year-old talent, Meisa Anami. Whoever comes out of this trio could go very far in the tournament.
In addition to the aforementioned Miyazaki, two Indian players, Unati Hooda and Anmol Kharb, are also absent from the tournament, though they would have been considered strong contenders.
Now let’s see who we can expect to make a breakthrough in the boys’ singles:
The overwhelming favorite in the boys’ category is China’s Hu Zhe An, a two-time Junior Asian Champion who won gold at the 2023 East Asian Youth Games, took silver at the 2023 U19 World Championships in Spokane, and recently won his first adult tournament (Super 100) after entering from the qualifiers.
Hu Zhe An’s results speak for themselves, but we must also mention Zhang Zhi Jie, who tragically passed away at the age of 17 during this year’s Asian Championships. If not for this tragedy, Zhang would have been considered one of the favorites now, and his true opportunity would have come in 2025, as he would still have been eligible to compete as a junior.
The most serious challenger to Hu Zhe An on home soil could be Indonesia’s Moh. Zaki Ubaidillah, who managed to „outsmart” the Chinese player twice during the team competition, helping his team secure the gold medal. Indonesia has brought a strong team this year as well, so it’s possible that someone may be able to replicate Alwi Farhan’s success from last year. However, China is also well-represented in this event. Wang Zi Jun is another strong contender, having produced convincing results in junior tournaments and already made his mark in the adult category. With the withdrawal of the South Korean team, the field has weakened somewhat, as three of their players reached the quarterfinals at the Asian Championships and would have been medal contenders in Nanchang as well. However, Thailand’s Patcharakit Apiratchataset could still pose a serious challenge to the top contenders.
One of the most interesting figures in this event is 17-year-old Bharath Latheesh from the United Arab Emirates, who has won several European junior tournaments in recent years, including this year’s Junior Hungarian International in Pécs. Latheesh is developing rapidly, so it will be fascinating to see how he fares against the best in his age group.