Tanvi Patri’s most memorable moments after winning a spunky Youth Olympics silver was…

Tanvi Patri, only 15, came from 10-19 down in the decider and reached 20-20. She made Chinese junior World champion Zhang Yi Xin, 17, suffer her frittering of 6 very nervy match points, before letting go of the gold medal at the Youth Olympics in badminton’s girls singles final at Dakar Senegal.

In an 82-minute classic between badminton’s hottest rivalry of India vs China, a titanic teen battle panned out as Zhang saved 3 match points finishing with a 21-15, 13-21, 24-26 scoreline as the Indian dragged her all the way into a corner, before the tiniest of net clips gave her a 25-24 escape, and then Tanvi sent one wide to deliver a fantastic final. And a silver she will be proud of and get pensive over, in equal measure.

At 10-19 in the third, Tanvi was down and almost out of it as the momentum had swung and she was playing tired strokes. But the Odiya youngster doesn’t give up. So she carefully built 9 of the next 10 points, well aware of the Chinese being nervous in a puddle of errors. The second wind was more of a breeze as she streamlined her plans and rediscovered the timing to get into Zhang’s way and trouble her all the way to the 24th point. Zhang had a net chord on 22 and Tanvi’s crunching strokes never lost the coherence in this period, as she reclaimed the net. The win for the Chinese had come by the slightest of margins, not because the Indian was spent or tired.

Tanvi, just 15 but playing very sophisticated badminton for her age, is worth every bit of the hype she has generated over the last 3 months that started with an Asian U17 gold and ended with a Youth Olympics silver. But, China, the eternal powerhouse that has featured in every girls singles final, prevailed to take the gold, as their latest iteration of siuthpaw was made to suffer before taking the title.

Tanvi started 3-5 down as Zhang Yi Xin threatened to use her left-handed angles and retrieving rigour to take the first leads. However, the Indian went on a 7-point spree picking the shuttle high on the net to play aggressively and go up to 10-5 up.

Tanvi’s punch clears ensured Zhang was kept away from the net and out of balance. But the delicious deception was in how she toggled the Chinese front and back, with rally constructions that used the backhand hold and drives to match Zhang. One one point, Tanvi kept peppering Zhang’s backhand which the Chinese diligently retrieved only to realise the winner buried on her forehand side.

The Bangalore resident would win the first set with one of her signature silhouettes – the jump at the back court and a forehand bursting forth for a shooting winner. Zhang is known for her retrieving, but Tanvi was daring her every point to live up to the reputation, while scattering the shuttle with precision, a plan that punctured the Chinese belief that she could pick every shuttle.

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The Indian was on a roll at 8-5 up before the left hander jolted out of her indecision and took control of the net. Both have exemplary footwork and can retrieve well. But though Tanvi has far more delectable strokes, the Chinese knew how to get out of trouble and problem solve with persistence. She waited for moments to frustrate Tanvi and raced to the second set, taking with her the crucial momentum.

Tanvi, would receive a yellow card for longer than permitted pauses between points, and she also got a speck of feather or dust in her eye that briefly bothered her. At any rate, she was staring at a 10-19 scoreline and a wipeout before a different kind of rallies lit up Dakar. The Chinese initially reckoned she was just two points away and Tanvi 9 adrift and took it a tad easy. Then she panicked because Tanvi wouldn’t stop inching towards her score. By 17-19, Zhang was melting.

So while she couldn’t convert her 6 match points, she held on to dear life and stubbed out Tanvi’s 3 match points with desperate scampers. Zhang is a top notch retriever, but the Indian silver came from making the gold mighty difficult to mine out.