Jay Meena had once imagined a different sporting life. As a young boy growing up in Dewas, Madhya Pradesh, Meena wanted to become a cricketer. Soft tennis was not part of the plan. In fact, when he first came across the sport at Pioneer Public School, he was merely curious enough to stop and watch.
Then he became a ball boy.
Somewhere between retrieving balls and watching players on the court, curiosity turned into interest. Interest turned into a game. And the game eventually became a career.
On Wednesday, that unlikely journey reached its biggest milestone yet. Meena became the first Indian to win a medal in soft tennis at the Asian Games after storming into the men’s singles semi-finals in the 2026 edition.
The 24-year-old secured the historic medal by fighting through a tense quarter-final against the Philippines’ Nuguit Sherwin. Meena had to recover from a difficult start, losing the opening game 0-4 before responding with a 4-2 win in the second.
He slipped again in the next game, but refused to let the match drift away. Two consecutive wins put him 3-2 ahead, leaving him with an opportunity to close out the contest. Nuguit, however, forced the match further, winning the sixth game 4-2.
That took the quarter-final into a seven-point tie-breaker, where Meena found himself under pressure again. He trailed 3-5 and was staring at another agonising exit.
Instead, he produced the decisive burst.
Meena won four points in a row to complete the comeback and book his place in the semi-finals – and, with it, India’s first-ever Asian Games medal in soft tennis.
STEADY RISE FOR JAY
It was another step forward for a player who had already been steadily rewriting the record books.
Meena had reached the singles quarter-finals at the 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou. This time, he went one step further and guaranteed a medal. He is also the only Indian to reach the medal rounds across the individual and mixed events at these Games, with fellow Indian Aryan Thakur bowing out in the group stage.
His breakthrough had been coming for some time.
Meena won gold in men’s singles at the 2022 National Games in Gujarat and later became the national champion in the discipline in 2025. Internationally, he won India’s first-ever medal at the World Soft Tennis Championships in 2024, taking bronze in mixed doubles with Aadhya Tiwari.
A year later, he became the first Indian to win a medal at the Asian Soft Tennis Championships, claiming bronze in men’s singles. He finished that tournament with four medals across the singles, mixed doubles, men’s team and mixed team events.
His international journey had started remarkably early. By the age of 14, Meena was already competing in Japan, the home of soft tennis. Now, at his third Asian Games appearance, the sport he discovered almost by accident has given him a place in Indian sporting history.
Behind that journey has also been structured support. Meena is a Target Asian Games Group (TAGG) athlete and trained at national coaching camps in Ahmedabad and Jammu in preparation for the Asian Championships and Asian Games. He has also received assistance for foreign exposure in Korea and Japan, including training in Japan.
During the 2026 Asian Games cycle, he received Rs 4,06,950 under TAGG and Rs 18,79,948 under Assistance to National Sports Federations.
The numbers tell one part of Meena’s story. The medal tells another. But perhaps the most revealing part remains the beginning: a boy who wanted to play cricket, a school court he happened to stumble upon, and a ball-boy role that eventually led him to a sport in which he would make history for India.
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