3 min readApr 8, 2026 09:41 PM IST
There was no fancy strike-making and shot-playing. Just the willingness to put her head down, endure the punishing rallies that are an everyday 9 to 5 of international badminton, stay persistent and never give up. Unnati Hooda showed the rigour to retrieve unreservedly, and defeated Thailand southpaw Supanida Katethong at the Badminton Asia Championships (BAC) late in Ningbo on Wednesday.
Unnati takes on the Japanese wunderkid Tomoka Miyazaki on Thursday.
The 72-minute marathon ended 23-25, 21-8, 21-18 in favour of the Indian. Unnati had gotten herself into the ditch, fluffing a 19-12 lead in the opener to lose the first set 23-25. She had frittered 4 set points. But she dug herself out of that lapse of focus, and literally put her head down to plot her upclimb. She defended tenaciously, keeping a good whip on her defenses, but most importantly, picked the short drops that the World No 11 Supanida tends to play to the forecourt
The Indian, ranked No 27, has been spoken of as the first of the crop of youngsters who can take the baton from PV Sindhu. Coached by her father, Unnati is capable of wildly swinging inconsistencies – she lost the World Junior finals, but had earlier defeated Sindhu at China. But you can’t deny her the effort she puts in to kill all signs of flashy strokes, and stick to a disciplined game, playing within her limitations.
It was this often-boring rigour she brought to the court against Supanida. Light on her feet, Unnati’s defense achieved what was needed. She also seemed to have read the drift conditions well and didn’t get adventurous playing to the lines.
Her fitness ofcourse allowed her to play the monotony of exchanges, most of which involved her sweeping the shuttle with the backhand, recovering back to T, scurrying to the back and making fewest errors. All this after she had blundered to hand over the first set from a comfortable position. It showed in the second, when Supanida hardly offered any resistance and that set was collected in a jiffy.
Unnati led unchallenged till 13-10 in the second. The Haryana youngster had stemmed her habit of losing several points in a cluster. But Supanida upped the ante to reach 13-13. It looked like the 18-year-old, ten years younger than the Thai leftie, would be blown away at 15-17. But it was her defensive determination that cracked Supanida’s momentum. One looping return that went long and then another smashed wildly brought parity at 18-all. But it was 5 straight points to Unnati from 16-18, drawn out from playing on the Thai’s patience that gave her the win.
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In a women’s doubles match, India’s second best doubles pairing of Shruti Mishra and Priya Konjengbam prevailed 21-15, 17-21, 21-13 over Vietnamese Pham-Pham.
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