Jai Meena has created history in the Asian Games 2026. He has won the first medal for India in men's soft tennis. However, in the semi-finals he lost 2–4 to Takuya Kurosaka of Japan.
Despite the defeat in the semi-finals, he was successful in winning the bronze medal. Meena made a brilliant comeback against Sherwin Nuguit in the quarter-finals and secured India's first medal in soft tennis at the Asian Games.
In that match, they were trailing in the last game, but then came back to win four points in a row and won the quarter-finals 4-3 to reach the semi-finals, where they lost to Kurosaka and ended their journey with a historic bronze medal.
Meena's journey in soft tennis began with an interesting coincidence. Initially he was interested in cricket and wanted to become a cricketer. But when he joined Pioneer Public School, Dewas, the soft tennis court built there attracted his attention. Earlier he used to watch the players playing and later started helping as a ball boy.
Gradually his interest in soft tennis increased and he started playing this game himself. After starting with school and district level competitions, he reached the state and national level. At the age of just 14, he went to Japan to participate in international competitions.
Meena made his mark by winning the gold medal in the men's singles category in the 36th National Games held in Gujarat in 2022. Apart from this, he also played an important role in winning medals for Madhya Pradesh in the men's team and doubles events.
After this his performance continued to improve. In 2025, he became the national champion of men's singles. He also performed well at the Asian Games 2022, where he reached the quarterfinals of the men's singles. He also left his mark at the international level by representing India in the men's team event.
In 2024, Meena along with Aadhya Tiwari won the bronze medal in the mixed doubles match of the World Soft Tennis Championship. With this achievement, he created history by giving India its first medal of this tournament.
After this, in 2025, he also performed brilliantly in the Asian Soft Tennis Championship. By reaching the semi-finals of men's singles, he won the bronze medal and became the first Indian player to win a medal in this competition.
In this continental championship, Meena won a total of four medals, which was her biggest achievement. This is his third Asian Games as an athlete of the Target Asian Games Group. Even before this, he had represented India in Jakarta Asian Games 2018 and Hangzhou Asian Games 2022.