India's soft tennis duo Jay Meena and Aadhya Tiwari are targeting the country's first-ever medal at the Asian Games 2026 in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, energised by an intensive five-to-six-month international campaign that included training stints and competitive exposure in South Korea and Japan. The pair, both supported under the Sports Authority of India's (SAI) Target Asian Games Group (TAGG) scheme, lead a six-member Indian soft tennis contingent at the Games.

India's campaign so far

India opened their Asian Games soft tennis bid in the men's team event with a confident 3-0 victory over Laos in their opening Group C match. A 3-0 loss to Chinese Taipei followed, before India recovered with a 3-0 win over Mongolia to advance to the quarterfinals. They were eventually eliminated by Indonesia at the quarterfinal stage.

Beyond the team event, Jay is competing in men's singles and mixed doubles, while Aadhya is entered in women's singles and mixed doubles. The rest of the squad comprises Yogesh Choudhary, Om Yadav, Aniket Chirag Patel (men's team) and Aryan Thakur (men's singles and team), accompanied by coach Devanshi Hareshbhai Patel and physiotherapist Utsav Kumar Dubey.

Jay Meena: From Dewas cricket grounds to Asian Games podium hunt

Originally from Dewas, Madhya Pradesh, Jay stumbled into soft tennis as a youngster, having initially set his sights on cricket. A soft tennis court next to his school piqued his curiosity, and by age 14 he was already competing internationally. He represented India at the 2018 Jakarta-Palembang Asian Games and went on to claim gold in men's singles at the 36th National Games in Gujarat.

The landmark moment of Jay's career arrived in 2024, when he and Aadhya secured bronze in mixed doubles at the World Soft Tennis Championships — India's first-ever medal at that event. He added a national championship title in 2025 and became the first Indian to win an individual continental medal, claiming bronze in men's singles at the 2025 Asian Soft Tennis Championship. Most recently, he won bronze in men's singles at the 2026 Sunchang Open in South Korea.

'In 2018 I played my first Asian Games in Jakarta. It was a very different experience of my life,' Jay said. 'This is my third Asian Games. We had international camps; we stayed out of the country for four-five months, playing in Korea and Japan. Playing in Korea and Japan has boosted my confidence… We have never won a medal at the Asian Games and this is our target this time,' he added.

Aadhya Tiwari: Self-taught prodigy from Hoshangabad

Aadhya, who hails from Hoshangabad, Madhya Pradesh, began playing tennis at the age of three — an unusual feat for a town with limited coaching infrastructure. Her father was a Ranji Trophy cricketer, yet Aadhya gravitated towards racquet sports largely by self-directed practice. She competed in lawn tennis and reached the Asia No. 6 ranking before pivoting to soft tennis around 2013 after a chance conversation with the Madhya Pradesh Soft Tennis secretary at a tournament.

'In my very first tournament, I got two bronze and one silver medal, and my name came up in the Junior World Championship and Senior World Championship,' Aadhya recalled. Now ranked India No. 1 in soft tennis, she became the youngest Indian to represent the country at an Asian Games when she featured at the 2018 Jakarta-Palembang edition aged just 15. At the 2023 Hangzhou Asian Games, she finished fifth in the women's team event. In 2025, she claimed bronze medals in mixed doubles and mixed team at the Asian Soft Tennis Championship.

'I am very thankful to the TAGG scheme because the camps we got helped our game develop and improve a lot,' Aadhya said from Japan. 'Right now, I would just say that there are high chances of getting a medal,' she added.

SAI's TAGG scheme and the infrastructure edge

Both Jay and Aadhya credit the TAGG scheme — which provided financial support, equipment including imported racquets and balls, playing kits, and access to month-long camps in South Korea and a pre-Asian Games camp in Japan — as a decisive factor in their preparation. Jay noted that consistent competitive exposure in South Korea's and Japan's year-round league structures helped sharpen match-fitness and muscle memory ahead of the high-pressure Games environment.

This comes amid a broader Indian government push to identify podium-potential athletes in non-traditional Olympic sports ahead of the Asian Games cycle. With the mixed doubles pairing already holding a World Championship bronze, the groundwork for a historic Asian Games medal has arguably never been more solid.