New Delhi: Tanvi Sharma has adapted to her new life in Guwahati ever since the rising shuttler shifted to the National Centre of Excellence a year and a half ago. But there’s one thing she longs for more than anything else. “Aloo ke paranthe and lassi,” quips the Hoshiarpur-born. “I miss Punjabi food.”
Though only 17, Tanvi possesses a clarity of thought one would associate with someone far older. Having stayed away from home for a decade, the teenager has learnt how to manage things on her own with a very mature head on her shoulders.
With Olympic bronze medallist Saina Nehwal already retired and former world champion PV Sindhu in the twilight of her career, the future of Indian women’s badminton rests on the young shoulders of Tanvi and her peers like Unnati Hooda, Isharani Baruah, Devika Sihag, Anmol Kharb among others.
But Tanvi’s performances over the past year have made her stand out. She has been ranked junior world No.1 for six straight months. In 2025, she claimed a bronze at the Asian Junior Championships before topping it up with a silver at the World Junior Championships.
At the senior level, she won the Denmark Challenge before finishing runner-up at both the US Open and Guwahati Masters. Last month too, she reached the Orleans Masters semi-finals. “I want to be in the top 25 this year which will help me qualify for the World Championships and Asian Games,” said Tanvi.
A naturally aggressive player, Tanvi was part of the Pullela Gopichand Badminton Academy (PGBA) from 2016 to 2021 in Hyderabad before Covid forced her to return home. After training under her mother Meena for a couple of years in Hoshiarpur, the mother-and-daughter duo realised to upskill Tanvi’s game, she needed a better coach.
In October 2024, Tanvi moved to Guwahati—one of the three national centres along with Hyderabad and Bengaluru—to train under South Korean coach Park Tae-sang, who guided Sindhu to the Olympic bronze in Tokyo 2021.
The move started delivering results immediately. Not only did Tanvi start winning tournaments, her senior ranking — which was in 258 in November 2024 — jumped to 100 by December 2024. She entered the top 50 by June 2025 and is now at a career-best of No.34, only behind Sindhu (13) and Unnati (27) among Indians.
What sets Tanvi apart is her technical variety which typically takes years to develop. Tactically very sound, the 17-year-old has the brilliant ability of reading her opponents and dictating the tempo of a match, evident from her run to the World Junior Championships final last year.
While her biggest strength is her attacking game—”I love hitting down-the-line smashes”—her deceptive net game and variation add a layer of flexibility especially during flat exchanges. This helps her overcome many higher-ranked opponents, such as former world champion Nozomi Okuhara, Japan’s Natsuki Nidaira and Vietnam’s Nguyen Thuy Linh.
“My game has changed a lot in the last year and a half under Coach Park. Earlier, it wasn’t this strong to play at the senior level. Now, he tells me that I have very good power and strokes. My movement and court coverage have also improved,” said Tanvi.
At the India Open here, Tanvi gave world No.2 and reigning All England champion Wang Zhi Yi a run for the money, taking a game off the Chinese and pushing her to the limit. But in the end, the Indian ran out of steam to lose the match.
Tanvi’s lack of stamina has held her back at times. She mostly wins her matches in straight games, but the youngster seems to struggle slightly when matches approach the hour mark.
“Park coach also tells me; I need to improve my endurance. At the end of the match, I get fatigued. I get tired because I have a smash game, a power game,” said Tanvi, adding that to improve her stamina she primarily spars with men’s shuttlers.
“I am working on that. I am running more to improve my endurance, working on my fitness (in the gym), doing court multis (high intensity multi-shuttle training) but I still have to improve a lot. If I do that, I can crack the top level.”
Tanvi’s rise hasn’t gone unnoticed. Apart from being signed by Olympic Gold Quest, she is now sponsored by Momentum by Raise and was also included in the Target Olympic Podium Scheme development group last year. She got a further boost when the Badminton Association of India (BAI) included her in the national team in January which covers her participation in every tournament.
Tanvi is also clear that 2026 will be her last year in the juniors as she aims to move into seniors after winning a medal at the Youth Olympics in Dakar in October-November.
Sindhu impact
Tanvi has long admired Sindhu, watching her win Olympic and World Championship medals apart from numerous BWF World Tour titles. Her dream came true when she shared the dugout with her idol at the 2024 Asian Team Championships in Malaysia which India won.
Park, who has coached both, has likened Tanvi’s game to Sindhu. It was also because of him that Tanvi got another opportunity to train with her idol this January after both were ousted from the India Open.
“Park coach had left for Guwahati early. Before leaving he requested Sindhu didi and (her coach) Irwansyah (Adi Pratama) if I could join them. They agreed. We trained together for a couple of days. I learnt a lot from Sindhu didi; her attitude, aggressiveness, never-give-up attitude. She talks very nicely with me. I want to be like her,” concluded Tanvi, who will be in action at the Asia Championships next week in Ningbo, China.
