Deepankar Sharda
Panchkula, December 5
Local shuttler Anupama Upadhyaya made an exit from the 2022 Bahrain International Challenge after losing semi-final against World Junior No. 1 Indonesian Ester Nurumi Tri Wardoyo.
Anupama, a student of CLDAV Public School, Sector 11, fought well before losing the match (21-16, 20-22, 21-14) to Ester, who is this year’s World Junior Bronze medallist in the women’s singles event held in Spain.
In the pre-quarterfinal, she defeated Insyriah Khan of Singapore (12-21, 21-17, 21-13), whereas in the quarterfinals, she defeated India’s Ashmita Chaliha (22-20, 21-16).
“It was disheartening for me. I had prepared well for this championship. I will try to forget my performance here and improve my mistakes in the upcoming events,” said Anupama.
Last month, the 17-year-old shuttler won her first-ever senior ranking tournament – Yonex Sunrise All-India Senior Ranking Badminton Tournament at Visakhapatnam. In the final, the ace shuttler defeated 6th seed Aditi Bhatt of Uttarakhand in straight games (21-8, 21-15).
Anupama is currently the top-ranked junior player as per the Badminton World Federation (BWF) rankings with 18,160 points in 19 tournaments. In March last year, she held 65th rank after winning the 2022 Polish Open 2022. Later in January, she jumped 43 spots to grab the 84th rank in the same rankings. Earlier this year, she had won the Poland Challenge (Arlamow) and also reached the semi-finals of the Syed Modi India International Super 300 series. She won the Infosys Foundation International Challenge Tournament and had also played in the quarterfinals of the Orleans Open, a super 100 series tournament held in Orleans (France) and played semis in the Pune Junior International Grandprix. In this championship, she lost to eventual winner Saranuk Vitdsarn of Thailand.
