‘Hero-style, hates to lose’: Meet 17-year-old shuttler who clinched a rare win over China | Badminton News

ANMOL KHARB loves a good one-liner, and doesn’t particularly care about traditional festivals if they come in the way of her badminton practice. On Diwali, she demanded to know from coach Kusum Singh why she couldn’t pack in a morning training session when all the revelry and fireworks happen in the evening. And on Rakshabandhan, she coolly declared, “I’ll protect myself. I don’t need rakhi.”At Shah Alam in Malaysia on Wednesday, though, the 17-year-old playing India’s fifth match and third singles gave her teammates and coaches plenty of reasons to break into noisy celebrations. Tied at 2-2, Anmol kept an icy cool temperament and hit consent winners to defeat Chinese Wu Luo Yu 22-20, 14-21, 21-18 and nick a rare 3-2 team victory against China at the Badminton Asia Team Championships.
China had fielded a second-string side, Luo Yu is ranked only No 149, and India were already assured a quarters spot. P V Sindhu and Treesa Jolly-Gayatri Gopichand set the tone to defy an always formidable Chinese unit, and Anmol pulled off the unlikeliest of deciders, reducing Luo Yu to a bundle of errors. The teen packed a proper punch from the back court in her strokes, and the thwack was resonant of the early days of Saina Nehwal and Sindhu.
There is a lot of Nehwal in the Faridabad teenager, beyond the Haryanvi determination and the short crop. Starting with the pivotal role of her mother Rajbala. “My daughter’s personality is hero-style. She hates to lose,” the mother says.

Father Devender Kharb is a lawyer and former kabaddi player, and attributes all the fearlessness and spunk to the mother. “Rajbala used to win races; in Haryana they compete holding matkas (earth pots) on their heads and you run balancing it. But her mother is brave — they once returned from a Goa tournament walking two hours to their hotel reaching at 1 am on unlit roads. And she never lets Anmol despair.”
Rajbala also drives 80 km from Faridabad to her Noida academy daily, and whips up bottles of fruit juice, lemonade, chhaas and lassi to keep Anmol hydrated through the day.
The father reckons a class teacher made Anmol the class monitor in Class 5, and made her sit on the front bench. “She has to always be ahead of everyone like a leader since then. The aggression and hating to lose comes from there,” he says.
Anmol started out as a speed skater, and though she was good, the knee grazes got too much and a few unfair elbows edged her out. She followed her older brother into badminton. He promptly pushed off to pursue a tech degree, while Anmol’s love for shuttle and aggressive smashes lingered. She still spends hours on 1,000 repetitions of stroke variations from each of the four court corners, and is no mug on dribbles. Or net eyeball confrontations.
Rajbala decided the daughter wouldn’t get bullied due to lack of strength and packed her off for “physical fitness” to a near facility that is run Godara Sir, brother of international boxer Jai Bhagwan. “It’s like commando training for athletes. They make them tough there. Most children flee the rigour and hide in near bushes and have to be dragged out to continue. Anmol fell ill initially from the strain, but she’s happiest there now, training with friends.”
She wakes at 5 am, trains at the boxers den for an hour, has breakfast and then sleeps in the car during the hour and half commute. “She’s learnt to sleep anywhere. On staircases at tournaments, in the car, she can switch on and off as she likes,” her mother says.
Anmol rarely switched off in Malaysia playing the fifth rubber. She might not have the most killer smash yet, but the consency and accuracy under pressure was awe-striking for a 17-year-old. Coach Pullela Gopichand could be heard conveying to her how the Chinese were slowing things down, and how she had to see through the deception. She didn’t need telling twice.
Her Noida coach Kusum Singh, who herself began in a village in Alwar, says the young woman has built herself an intimidating presence in training though she’s jovial and friendly. “She will challenge every boy she spars against and taunt them for being ‘naazuk’ if they slacken. If someone nicks points off her, she says ‘match mein dekh lungi tujhe’. She has no fear,” she says.
Kusum encourages her brash talk and wants her to be unfettered, as does mother Rajbala. “She talks too much, and sometimes we have to tell her to shut up. But I’ll never ask her to not express herself. If she finds a feeder is weak in sparring, she’ll get them changed. I tell her not to worry. I’m here, always sitting courtside, I’ll handle everything,” says Rajbala.