Table Tennis: Divyanshi breaks 36-year drought to win Asian U15 women's singles gold

Divyanshi Bhowmick broke a 36-year-old drought for India as she clinched the U15 women's singles title at the 2025 Asian Junior and Cadet Table Tennis Championships in Tashkent, Uzbekistan on Tuesday.

Up against China's Zhu Qihui in the final, the 14-year-old Divyanshi prevailed 13-11, 11-8, 8-11, 12-10, 9-11, 11-8 in a contest which lasted over 54 minutes.

She had taken down China's Liu Ziling 4-3 in a hard fought semi-finals, earlier in the day.

Divyanshi, considered to be one of India's brightest young paddlers, thus became the first Indian to win the Asian Cadet women's singles title in 36 years.

The last Indian to win the title was Subramanian Bhuvaneswari when she clinched the gold in front of a home crowd in Delhi back in 1989.

Divyanshi was in fine touch throughout the continental competition. She first topped her group with two straight games 3-0 victory to advance to the knock out rounds and earned a bye for Round of 32.

Divyanshi then took down Japan's Hisa Uriu 3-0 in the pre-quarters, before taking down three Chinese paddlers – Yang Huize, Liu, and Zhu – in the quarters, semis, and final respectively.

Ankur-Taneesha win bronze

Meanwhile, the Indian mixed doubles pair of Ankur Bhattacharjee and Taneesha Kotecha gged a bronze in the U19 category on Monday.

Bhattacharjee and Kotecha went down 2-3 in their semi-finals against Kim Gaon and Park Gah Yeon of South Korea to return home with a third-place finish.