Shuttler Sanskar Saraswat (RAJ) in action during the Yonex-Sunrise 31st Smt. Krishan Khaitan All India (U19) Ranking Badminton Tournament 2024 at Tau Devi Lal Stadium in Panchkula on Tuesday, September 17, 2024. (Express Photo by Jasbir Malhi)
On Tuesday afternoon, 18-year-old Rajasthan youngster Sanskar Saraswat paired up with Arsh Mohammad of Uttar Pradesh to claim the senior national doubles title with a 21-12, 12-21, 21-19 win over the pair of Naveen P and Lokesh V in the Senior National Badminton Championship at Bengaluru.
The Rajasthan youngster who had earlier won a junior singles title as well had paired up with Arsh to claim the U-19 doubles title in the 31st Smit Krishna Khaitan Memorial Badminton Tournament at Panchkula in September and the youngster had shared how he aspires to achieve glory in both the categories.
Saraswat’s father Raj Saraswat also happens to be a former national level singles and doubles player and Saraswat had shared about his father’s influence on his game. “My father Raj Saraswat too played both singles as well as doubles but one of his memories was seeing Lee Chong Wei playing in the Asian Satellite Tournament in Jaipur in 2003, where he too played. My father would always tell me that Chong Wei focussed on one format and look where he reached. But then I am still young and enjoy playing both singles and doubles. To win both the titles here is my aim and hopefully I can achieve that,” the Rajasthan youngster had told The Indian Express in September early this year.
The Rajasthan youngster had started playing badminton on the insistence of his father at the Drona Sports Academy, an academy opened by Saraswat Senior. Five years later, the youngster became the U13 national doubles champion along with Tushar Suveer in Kadapa, Andhra Pradesh and then paired up with Bhuvan Singh to become the U15 national doubles champion at Bhubaneswar in 2019.
While he and doubles partner Arsh Mohammad had reached the boys’ doubles final in the Asian Junior Championships in 2022, Saraswat had also reached finals and semi-finals in the All India. Ranking Tournaments in singles’ in the last two years. The Panchkula singles’ title also propelled him to the top spot in the U19 BAI national rankings. “The attacking drives game in singles as well as doubles have always fascinated me. While I train for singles’ only, I have been visualizing doubles scenarios in my mind in my free time. It’s all about the timing as well as understanding with one’s partner in doubles and luckily, I have been able to utilise my singles’ strengths of net game as well as back court game to my advantage in doubles,” Saraswat had said.
The youngster now is part of the National Centre of Excellence at Guwahati since the last one year and has been training under Malaysian coach Sankar Annamalai. After the Panchkula win, Saraswat also reached the singles’ quarter-finals in the NDMC-Telangana International Challenge.
“Sankar sir’s focus has been on my fitness as well as the attacking drive as well as smashes in singles. But then the amount of training we do for singles, helps me in doubles too where it’s a much faster game and the drives also help. Singles are also all about patience and right now, I am being patient in making the choice. I have one more year in juniors before I decide whether I will choose only singles or doubles,” Sarasat had told The Indian Express.
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