In Visitors, I invite one person each week to share perspectives on a sport, a sporting event, sporting aspects or any thing in between. This week, Saakshi O. Juneja of To Each It’s Own joins us to give her thoughts on badminton and the state of badminton in India. If you would like to contribute for a future edition of Visitors, do not hesitate to e-mail me.

By Saakshi O. Juneja

I have been labeled as a “Tom-boyish” girl, right from my childhood days. Barely had any interest in sitting at home playing with Barbie look-alikes or fake kitchen sets. I always out there with the boys and (some) girls, getting myself dirty while playing games such as, ‘Hide-n-Seek’, ‘Chor-Police’ and the likes.

I guess the likening for aggressive out-door activities was built in me right from the start and was further encouraged by my family. Both of my older siblings actively participated in sporting activities in school and inter-school levels. My dad in the early 1980s started a sportswear manufacturing unit in Mumbai and went on to establish a well-renowned brand in India, today.

During my younger days, I skipped from one sport to another mainly cause of my constant need of change or maybe I was searching of my ‘The’ sport. I started with Athletics, moved on to swimming and then finally landed on Badminton. And it has remained my favorite sport till this very date.

During the late 80s and early 90s, one can Badminton as a sport was at its peak. At that time I used to play at with my friends and was also enrolled in coaching practice at Juhu Gymkhana. With only 3 badminton courts and around 50 odd kids cribbing to get themselves on them, it used to really difficult for the officials in-charge, to handle the situation at times.

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Thomas Cup, or the World Badminton Championshps, is in it’s quarter final stages. Denmark start Favourite versus India. How have the Indians fared so far?

Telegraph reports:

But the Indian shuttlers have also showed much promise, reflected in the way they dispatched the New Zealanders despite missing top player Chetan Anand due to an injury.

National champion Anup Sridhar packed off world No. 33 John Moody while Nikhil Kanetkar, replacing Anand, rose to the occasion and brushed aside Craig Cooper’s challenge. Arvind Bhat was also impressive in his efforts.

The victory against New Zealand would serve as a big boost for India given the fact that they were playing without their top singles player in Anand and doubles specialist in Sanave Thomas, who pulled out of the tournament.

Malaysia take on South Korea in another quarter final. China was dominating defeating Germany and will now meet England. The Uber Cup is also going on, of course.

For more scores, see here.