I want to be a world champion some day: Anmol Kharb after Asian Badminton Team Championships triumph

Anmol Kharb needed a few days to handle the overwhelming adulation that followed her win in the final singles tie against Thailand at the Asian Badminton Team Championships. After all, it was her victory that sealed India’s historic gold medal.

“After I won my match, I didn’t touch my phone for two hours after the final. It was just blowing up,” the 17-year-old tells  Sportstar. “There were just so many notifications; I got so many follow requests on  Instagram, DMs (direct messages), and story tags. I tried my best to respond to as many of them as I could. There are just so many people who want to meet you that I’ve not had time to train properly. I won’t mind when things get a little calm once again. I don’t know how those big star players manage to do it,” she says.

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Anmol is close to becoming a star player herself, and that has its own perks.

“One of my friends is a very big fan of (Indian men’s doubles player) Chirag (Shetty). Actually, before I joined the Indian team, she told me to get his autograph. And after we won the gold medal, I got a message from Chirag bhaiyya directly. So, I took the chance to ask him if he could record an audio message for her. He said, ‘Of course. You have made our country proud, so this is the least I can do’. Then he recorded a personal message for her. It felt really good that such a big star was doing that for me. And my friend was also very happy,” says Anmol.

“They are saying now we need you to give us your autograph. They are only teasing, but it’s a little funny because I’ve never seen myself like one of those stars,” she adds.

Indeed, Anmol says her being a rookie turned out to be an advantage. “Everyone pampered me. No one put any pressure on me. Even the coaches looked after me. They would always see if I was eating well and recovering well,” she says.

A few years ago, not many would have. Not even Anmol’s father, Devender Kharb, who set her career in motion when he and a group of his neighbours got together to build a cement badminton court at their residential complex in Sector 16 in Faridabad.

“I just did that because we thought it would be a nice recreational activity,” says Devender, who travelled to Selangor, Malaysia, where he watched from the stands as his daughter scripted history over the course of the week.

In the final against Thailand, India was tied 2-2 before Anmol secured a decisive victory by defeating World No. 45, Pornpicha Choeikeewong, with a score of 21-14, 21-9. National coach Pullela Gopi Chand enthusiastically gave her a high five, and her teammates lifted her amid cheers. This marked Anmol’s third consecutive win against higher-ranked opponents at the Asian Championships. Earlier, she defeated China’s World No. 149, Wu Luo Yu, 22-20, 14-21, 21-18 in the group stage and played a crucial role in India’s semifinal win over Japan by beating World No. 29 Natsuki Nidaira. Both of these victories were decisive in their respective ties.

Gopi Chand lavished praise on the youngest who, at World No. 472, was the lowest-ranked member of the Indian team.

“To take the pressure on and show that kind of nerve, it is very refreshing. She is fearless. The kind of strokes that she plays all come naturally to her. She is reading the game well; you can see her intelligence. She played beautifully,” Gopi Chand would say.

As she flawlessly competed with older and higher-ranked rivals, it became clear that the 17-year-old was meant for the elite level. However, it was by chance that Anmol stumbled upon badminton. Her father, Devender, played kabaddi for Delhi at the national level, but an injury forced him to retire and pursue a career in law. Anmol’s brother, Hardik, was a skater who also competed at the national level before a fall at high speed made him reconsider his interest in the sport.

“He was really good in studies, and after that fall, he didn’t want to take a chance with injuries, so he gave that up. But I still wanted him to play some sport, so I decided to set up some cement courts in our housing society,” says Devender.

While the court was meant for his son, it was Anmol, then just 10, who took a fascination for the sport.

“She was really young, but she wouldn’t let anyone else play on the court until she first got a game. And at that age, we all indulged her,” recalls Devender.

He soon realised, though, that Anmol’s interest in the sport wasn’t a passing one.

“There’s a saying in Hindi:  pooth ke paon palne me dikh jate hain (A person’s future can be determined by their present actions). I looked around for coaching classes to put her in. There might have been a hundred kids along with her, but her first coach told her after a few sessions that she would go further than all of them,” recalls Devender.

It wasn’t obvious right away, in terms of results, that Anmol would go as far as she did. At her first State championships, she got to the finals, but she lost in the quarterfinals of her first Under-13 nationals the same year. The next year, she lost at the U-15 nationals to then Indian No. 1 Samayara Panwar. The results did not worry her or her father.

“At that time, she was really very young. She was competing against girls who were two years and older than her. But despite losing, she never got disheartened. I’d always see her smiling. She’d make friends and get along with girls from all the other States. After a tournament, I’d be looking to take her home, and I’d find her chatting with some opponent or another,” he says.

Anmol would get her breakthrough season towards the end of 2021, when she finally became the U-15 champion. “That was when she actually started hitting her growing years. She was always very quick, but she was finally able to reach shuttles that she otherwise wasn’t able to,” says Devender.

It was right about then that Anmol started getting serious about her training.

“Although she was very good at studies, she decided to take a non-science stream. She also shifted her training centre,” says Devender.

Anmol now trains in Noida under coach Kusum Singh, once a contemporary of Saina Nehwal. Her mother, Rajbala, makes the three-hour round trip with her every day from their home in Faridabad. Her training, though, isn’t restricted solely to badminton.

“We are from Haryana, so we have some traditional ways of preparing her. She drinks a lot of milk and eats halwa and bajra roti for strength. But we also have some methods that people can say are different. Every day in the morning, Anmol wakes up at 5a.m. and heads to a park where a former international boxer takes a physical training class. She’s one of about 40 kids, but she’s the only badminton player. The idea was her mother’s because she felt Anmol needed to have that kind of power in her game,” says Devender.

It’s unusual, but there’s no doubt it has worked. If her coach once competed against Nehwal, Anmol, who idolises her fellow statemate, emulated her feat by winning the national championships last year.

Despite being the national champion, Anmol admits she felt nervous when she was included in the Indian team for the Asian Team Championships.

“I was a little nervous because everyone on the team was older than me. And I was getting a chance to play alongside P.V. Sindhu. The boys team was also with us, and you have players who are World No. 1 with them. The first time I met everyone, I was just really quiet because I was so nervous. But everyone was really friendly. Everyone welcomed me,” she says.

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The coaches would look out for her on the court too. “During the match, at every point, Gopi sir was telling me where to get ready, where to stand on the court, and where I could play the shuttle. If I lost a point, he would say, ‘The next point is yours’. If the rallies were very long and I was getting tired, he would say that if I was tired, I needed to realise just how tired my opponent would be. He told me not to show any sign that I was tired. At every point, he was telling me what to do and what not to do,” she says.

That constant advice and reassurance is what Anmol says helped her play some of the best badminton of her career.

“I think after I beat the Chinese player, I got a lot of confidence in my ability. I’ve played better in this tournament because I was really patient during the rallies. I mostly played a lot of tosses and drops. I didn’t hit a lot of smashes. I was really calm in this tournament. I think it was because of the team support and Gopi sir,” she says.

However, Anmol admits there’s a lot more she can improve on. “There was a moment in the semifinal (against Japan’s Nidaira) where I was leading 15-10 in the second game before she came back 17-17. I think I was playing a little defensively there. I should have tried to control the points a bit more. I also think I can improve on my net play,” she says.

She has another couple of months to work on those skills as she prepares for the Uber Cup in May. While the squad hasn’t yet been named, it would seem that Anmol had shown enough potential to guarantee a place in the team. But her goals are even higher. “I want to be a world champion some day, and I hope I can be on the podium at the 2028 Olympics,” she says.

Anmol might be her toughest critic, but while she continues to hone her skills, there’s one aspect in which at least her father believes she’s unlikely to change much.

“She has always been a very happy-go-lucky girl. She’s always pulling pranks. Like, when she comes back from her training, she will come from the back gate and then hug me from behind just to scare me. Even when she wins a match or a tournament, she’ll expect a reward like a meal from a restaurant. But in particular, she will demand chocolate ice cream. Because that is something she’s not allowed to eat generally,” he says.

A cheat meal was her reward for the Asian Team Championship gold as well. “After the tournament, we went out for lunch. We didn’t eat ice cream, but we had boba tea. I’ve had it before, but the one we had in Malaysia was really tasty,” she says.

As the baby of the squad, Anmol only got to enjoy herself, but now that she’s back in India and is being hailed as one of the biggest prospects in Indian badminton, the roles have been reversed.

“All my friends and teammates are teasing me a little bit. They are saying you are a big player; you won’t speak to us anymore, so, at least give us a party. I’ll have to give a pizza party at least,” she says.