Tanvi Patri, the 16-year-old prodigy who is seen as a major emerging talent in Indian badminton, vindicated the decision to select her in a 2-member badminton squad for the Youth Olympics at Dakar, Senegal, by ensuring a gold/silver medal on Wednesday. Tanvi defeated Japanese Yuzuno Watanabe 21-14, 11-21, 21-19 in a tight semifinal, that the Indian pulled out with steely nerves in the decider.

The Indian runs into the formidable Chinese Yi Xin Zhang of China, who considers Chen Yufei her idol, as per Olympics.com. Tanvi had beaten China’s Zhou Jing Li and Yu Ying Gui at the Asian U17s, but, Zhang is the newly crowned Junior World Champion.

Zhang is known for her opponent-specific preparation and dynamic warming up, so Tanvi will be basically running into a well-oiled Chinese challenge. Zhang started badminton at 6-7 as per the Olympics website but this generation of Chinese is vastly different.

“Maybe I can understand a little bit of English. It’s different from Asia and China.…