Pinehurst (US), July 23 (IANS) Two of India’s most decorated teenagers, Mahreen Bhatia and Arshvant Srivastava will lead the Indian challenge at this week’s US Kids World Teen Championship at the iconic Pinehurst, North Carolina.

The US Kids India team has six players in this year’s edition of the annual World Teens event. There are two players in the Boys 15-18 and four in Girls 15-18 and all have good experience in and out of India.

Mahreen was third at the 2024 edition and runner-up in 2023 and is aiming to get to the top. In the past year her achievements also include a win at the 2024 Shubhankar Sharma Invitationals and was second at the 2024 at the Tommy Fleetwood International Pathway Series Pres by DP and also won the FCG Callaway World Juniors in the US in July last year. She was also in the Top-5 of the Faldo Series Asia Grand Final.

Arshvant comes in with a lot of experience from US Kids events in the past few years and has two good wins on domestic circuit in 2024 at the NCR Cup Juniors and the Greens to Glory event and was the runner-up at US Kids Indian Championship.

This season he has had Top-5 finishes in US Kids China, US Kids Thailand and the Faldo Series Asia Grand final and was seventh in the US Kids UAE.

Vihaan Jain played the 2024 US Kids World Teens in 2024 and was T-13 with Arshvant also in the field.

Asara Sawhney was T-7 in 2024 US Kids, while Anushka Gupta and Ayesha Gupta also hold a lot of promise.

The Indian team: Boys: Arshvant Srivastava (Boys 15-18); Vihaan Jain (Boys 15-18); Girls: Anushka Gupta (Girls 13); Mahreen Bhatia (Girls 15-18), Ayesha Gupta (Girls 15-18) and Asara Sawhney (Girls 15-18, Delhi) T-7

The week after the US Kids Teen Championship, India will be fielding a 14-member squad at the US kids for ages 6 and above and the event will be held at Pinehurst.

–IANS

bc/