Ritika-Simran finish second best at Junior National Badminton

NAGPUR: The 41st Junior National Badminton Championships, which concluded at Udipi, Karnataka, on Saturday, will certainly go down as one of the most memorable tournaments for Ritika Thaker.
The 15-year-old talented city shuttler created a record of sorts by returning with one silver medal and three bronze medals - U-17 girls singles, U-19 girls doubles and inter-state team championship. Incidentally, she became the first girl from the city to achieve this feat at the junior nationals.
Ritika was close to bagging the maiden gold medal at the junior nationals but she lost the U-17 girls doubles final on Saturday.The top seeded pair of K Ashwini Bhat and UK Mithula shattered the dreams of second seeded duo of Ritika and Simran Singhi with a fluent 21-13, 21-11 in 34 minutes. The hectic tournament schedule of the last few days perhaps took a heavy toll on Ritika-Simran body as they failed to produce their best performance against the Karnataka pair.
Ritika, a standard X student of CDS School, was pleased with her overall performance at Udipi and promised to do better next time.
"Although we are little disappointed with today's result, overall it was a fruitful week for me. I reached semi-finals in all the three events I took part and played the final of U-17 doubles. In team event also, we did well and reached the semi-finals where we lost a close semi-final 2-3 against Karnataka," said Ritika, who is a trainee of Ajay Dayal Badminton Academy.