From MA Stadium to the National Podium: Four Jammu Teens Bring Home Soft Tennis Bronze

Ask most people in Jammu to name a racquet sport and they will say tennis or badminton. Almost nobody says soft tennis — and yet, quietly, at MA Stadium in the heart of the city, a small group of teenagers has been getting seriously good at it. Good enough, it turns out, to stand on a national podium.

Four young players from the Khelo India Soft Tennis Centre at MA Stadium, Jammu, clinched the bronze medal at the 3rd North Zone National Soft Tennis Championship, held at Gindun Stadium in Srinagar from June 26 to 28, 2026. Competing against some of the strongest teams in North India, the Jammu side held its own and came home on the podium — a result that says a lot about a programme most of the city doesn't even know exists.

The four who did it

The medal-winning group was made up of Madhavendra Singh Sambyal (17), Harikesh Dutt Sharma, Aditya Dutt Sharma and Vihan Parihar. They train under coach Indu Bhushan Padha, an international soft tennis player and Khelo India mentor who has been building the discipline in Jammu largely out of public view — the kind of coach whose name never trends but whose players keep turning up on results sheets.

One name to watch closely is Madhavendra. He has already earned selection to represent India at the Asian Junior Soft Tennis Championship — and he is not the only Sambyal in the India setup, with his sister Sidhani Singh also making the national cut. A brother-and-sister pair from Jammu representing the country in a sport the city has barely heard of is exactly the kind of story that should be on every young player's radar.

So what is soft tennis, anyway?

Soft tennis looks a lot like the game you already know, but it is played with a softer rubber ball and lighter racquets. It is hugely popular across East and Southeast Asia, and it has a real, structured competitive circuit in India — the ladder runs from district and zonal meets up through national championships and on to continental events like the Asian Juniors. Because the ball is gentler and the equipment lighter, it is easier on beginners' joints and quicker to pick up than the power-heavy standard game. In practice, that makes it a genuinely accessible entry point: a school or college student in Jammu can start from scratch and be competing at a zonal level far sooner than they might in most sports.

It is also more of a serious pathway than the "niche" tag suggests. Soft tennis is a recognised competitive discipline with its own national federation and a place on the Asian Games programme, which means there is a real, unbroken ladder from a city centre like MA Stadium all the way up to international representation — the exact ladder Madhavendra and Sidhani are now climbing. For a young player, that matters: you are not picking a hobby with a dead end, you are picking a sport with a national team at the top of it.

Why MA Stadium matters

None of this happens without a place to train, and that is the quiet hero of this story. The Khelo India Soft Tennis Centre at MA Stadium is a right-in-the-city facility that turns raw interest into national-level results — and it sits at the same MA Stadium that anchors so much of Jammu's sporting life. Khelo India, the central government's flagship grassroots sports scheme, funds exactly these kinds of centres precisely so that talent in smaller cities doesn't have to migrate to a metro to be spotted.

The players' bronze also came with visible institutional backing — from the J&K Sports Council, the Department of Youth Services and Sports, and the Jammu & Kashmir Amateur Soft Tennis Association (JKASTA). When that support structure works, this is what it looks like: local coaches, a funded centre, a competitive calendar, and young athletes who get to test themselves against the best in the region without leaving home.

The takeaway for young Jammu

The bigger point here is not one bronze medal. It is that a niche sport, a city stadium and a committed coach just combined to put four Jammu teenagers on a national podium and two siblings into the national team. For anyone in the city who assumes the only routes to a sporting career run through cricket or through the big metros, this is a useful correction: the pathway can start at MA Stadium, in a sport most of your friends have never played. If you are curious — or you know a younger sibling who is sporty but hasn't found their game — the soft tennis centre is right here in Jammu. And clearly, it works.

Sources: Greater Kashmir — 4 Jammu players win bronze at North Zone Soft Tennis Championship; Morning Kashmir — Jammu's young aces clinch bronze at North Zone Soft Tennis Championship.