NEW DELHI: Weeks before the 2026 Asian Games, Jay Meena was bedridden with typhoid and a severe infection, losing eight kilograms in the process. Sent home to Dewas in Madhya Pradesh from an Asian Games training camp in Srinagar in August, the 25-year-old needed his parents to feed him by hand for nearly a week.Recovery was difficult too. For a week, he would feel dizzy after walking just a few steps. An iffy stomach only made his attempts to regain his strength and return to shape more challenging.Cut to the present. The moment his opponent’s final shot drifted long and Meena won India’s first-ever Asian Games medal in Soft Tennis, the 25-year-old collapsed onto the baseline in joy. Moments later, he was back on his feet, arms spread wide and roaring towards the Indian bench. The celebration marked far more than a bronze medal. It was a historic moment for Indian Soft Tennis, with Meena securing the country’s first-ever Asian Games medal in the sport.Meena narrates that for 15 days, he was completely out of action and the clock on the Asian Games was ticking down. All his efforts over the course of the past few months had just been undone by the viral infection. “I started light warm-ups, I started training again. I could not sit at home at such a moment,” he tells TimesofIndia.com, with the urgency of the situation still quite evident in his voice.He recovered just in time to board the flight to Tokyo and the Shinkansen (train) to Nagoya. The ordeal, however, was far from over.
New Delhi, Sep 24 (ANI): Indian athlete Jay Meena, winner of the Bronze Medal in soft tennis at the Asian Games 2026, receives a warm welcome from his family members and supporters on his arrival at the IGI airport, in New Delhi on Thursday. (ANI Photo/Neeraj)
Recovering from typhoid meant nutrition became almost as important as training. But in Nagoya, the predominantly seafood menu offered few vegetarian options. In the absence of a traditional Games village, he made do with corn, bread, butter, milk and cereal. While urging the authorities to send a chef alongside future contingents, Meena stressed that pre-packaged foods cannot replace fresh preparations.The lingering effects of the illness surfaced during his semi-final loss to Japan’s Takuya Kurosaka (2-4), as Meena required a medical timeout to continue the closely contested match at the Higashiyama Park Tennis Center.He later revealed that a hip niggle was preventing him from playing his backhand, with a “pinching” pain each time he went for the shot.Then there is the obvious mental challenge of representing the country at such a competition. Little by little, the chances of winning a medal got smaller and the internal battles got bigger. First, the men’s team, also featuring Meena, lost 0-2 to Indonesia in the quarter-finals. Then, Meena and Aadhya Tiwari lost in the first round of mixed doubles.“There were a lot of disappointing nights, a lot of self-doubts that we had all night. When we lost the quarter-final against Indonesia, it was a big opportunity on the 18th. If we had won that day, then Soft Tennis would have opened the (medal) account for India. After that, there was (the) mixed doubles in which Aadhya and I reached the pre-quarter-finals but lost. So, there were very disappointing nights going on day by day,” said Meena in reflection of the start of the competition.“After all these things, it was very difficult to come back and gain confidence after the self-doubt. It was very difficult to wake up every morning with new hope and get on the court with a new zeal,” he continued.
Nagoya: India�s Aadhya Tiwari and Jay Meena compete in the mixed doubles group B soft tennis match in the ongoing 20th Asian Games, at Higashiyama Park Tennis Center , in Nagoya, Japan. (PTI Photo/Arun Sharma)(PTI09_21_2026_000029B)
A career that almost wasn’t and brother’s sacrificeThe desperate need for belief and confidence is not new to Meena’s career. When he was in Class 10 and his foray into Soft Tennis was not going anywhere, Rameshwar, his lawyer father, suggested stepping away and focusing elsewhere. It was then that his mother stepped in and pushed for a rethink and patience. That punt paid off.Years later, Meena began rewriting Indian Soft Tennis history, winning National Games gold, India’s first World Championships medal in mixed doubles, and a breakthrough Asian Championships bronze.Still one of his biggest supporters, Meena’s father travelled with his son to national tournaments and even accompanied him to Japan for the Asian Games.
The financial condition was not so good. We had to force him to stay back because my father could not afford more than what was costing me to play. That’s why my brother went into Engineering.
Jay Meena
The hardest sacrifice, perhaps, belongs to someone else: his younger brother Yash.Two years younger than Jay, Yash was a Soft Tennis player and national medallist. But with their financial condition less than ideal, a hard decision was needed and Jay’s career continued.“The financial condition was not so good. We had to force him to stay back because my father could not afford more than what was costing me to play. That’s why he went into Engineering,” says the MP native.“Somewhere or the other, my younger brother’s life was sacrificed because of me. Because my parents paid more attention to me for about 10 years. If we had continued, then maybe he would have been with me in the Asian Games,” he continued.
From gully cricket to Soft Tennis courts
Jay Meena was like many other youngsters in the country who harboured cricket ambitions. He would play gully cricket with other kids in his street. The notorious boy in him, though, tended to pick up fights and get into altercations. Even at school, he would bother the teachers, including once setting off fireworks under his principal’s desk.The situation came to a head when he was rusticated from Ebenazer Higher Secondary School in the fourth grade. With no school willing to take him in, Pioneer Public School agreed, but on one condition: that he join the sports academy. With his parents keen on keeping Jay’s antics in check, they agreed to sports coach Sudesh Sangte’s condition.
** TO GO WITH STORY** Nagoya: India’s bronze medalist Jay Meena, front right, poses on the podium with gold medalist Toshiki Uematsu, top left, of Japan, silver medalist Takuya Kurosaka, front left, of Japan, and bronze medalist Chen Po-yi, top right, of Chinese Taipei during the medal presentation ceremony for the soft tennis men’s singles event at the 20th Asian Games Aichi-Nagoya 2026, in Nagoya, Japan. (PTI Photo) (PTI09_25_2026_000201B)
Sangte, a former national-level Kho Kho player and now the national Soft Tennis coach, had set up a two-court facility.“My family was very upset with me. I would not stay at home, I would not allow anyone to relax. I used to fight. Their parents used to complain a lot and my family threw me out. They said, you are out now. You stay on the ground [academy]. Don’t come home in the morning and evening. Come home at night,” Jay says with a laugh.“The school teachers and my classmates were (also) upset. I was rusticated in the fourth grade. And no other school was admitting me. At that time, Mr. Sudesh Sangte, who is my head coach now, he got me admitted. I took admission during the summer holidays.”“They had made two courts in their school. So, I was playing in their academy during the summer holidays. I didn’t even know, when I started playing for India and now won the Asian Games medal,” he explained.
For me, this is an Olympic medal. It’s no less than an Olympic medal. All the strongest teams come in the Asian contingent. So this feels like an Olympic medal to me because Soft Tennis is not part of the Olympics
Jay Meena
Bigger than an Asian Games medal
Even though the International Soft Tennis Federation (ISTF) has 65 members, including Eritrea, Basque Country, Curacao, Malta, North Korea and Uganda, the sport is dominated by Asian countries. At the last World Soft Tennis Championships, held in Anseong, South Korea, in 2024, six countries had picked up medals: Korea, Japan, Chinese Taipei, China, India and the Philippines.At the 2026 Asian Games, there were entries from 13 National Olympic Committees (NOCs), with Cambodia, Japan, South Korea, Mongolia, the Philippines and North Korea sending the maximum permissible 10 players. In the end, athletes from Japan, Chinese Taipei, North Korea, South Korea, Indonesia, India and the Philippines walked away with medals.Considering the dominance of Asian countries in Soft Tennis, Jay weighs this new medal on an Olympic scale.“For me, this is an Olympic medal. It’s no less than an Olympic medal. All the strongest teams come in the Asian contingent. So this feels like an Olympic medal to me because Soft Tennis is not part of the Olympics,” the youngster explained.Sixteen years ago, Soft Tennis was simply a way to keep an unruly fourth-grader out of trouble. Today, it has given India a historic Asian Games medal.
