Harsheel, Shivani bag junior badminton titles

NAGPUR: Mumbai shuttler Harsheel Dani is barely 16 but he emerged as the new national U-19 singles champion on the concluding day of the 37th Junior National Badminton Championships at Imphal on Sunday.
In an edge-of-the-seat thriller, Harsheel quelled the spirited challenge from Aditya Joshi to win the U-19 boys singles final 21-19, 18-21, 21-17 in an hour and 10 minutes.
Down 7-13 in the decider, Harsheel staged a remarkable recovery to bag his maiden U-19 title. Last year at Jaipur Junior Nationals, Harsheel had won the U-17 singles title.
Harsheel could have easily won a double crown but squandered away seven match points to lose the U-17 singles final to same opponent – Aditya Joshin in over an hour. An umpiring error on one of the match points also cost Harsheel the title.
"I am really happy with my effort today. Of course I could have won both the titles, but winning U-19 singles title was important for me," Harsheel told TOI after his triumph.
In the girls section, Andhra Pradesh’s Ruthvika Shivani made a clean sweep of sorts by claiming three titles. She won both the singles crown and later in the company of Poorvisha S Ram clinched the U-19 doubles title.
Ruthvika, a trainee of Pullela Gopichand, shocked top seed Reshma Karthik in the U-17 singles final.