Junior champ Rituparna takes bold strides

NEW DELHI: It was a quirk of fate that drew national junior champion Rituparna Das to badminton. The highest-ranked junior girl shuttler in the country almost took up table tennis back in her home town Haldia, West Bengal, growing up.
"I was about six and a half years of age when I joined the Indian Oil club in Haldia but that was to play table tennis. However, there weren't any TT coaches in the club and my mother told me to take up badminton instead.
There were plenty of quality shuttlers and coaches in Kolkata then, so I took the plunge and never looked back," Rituparna told TOI on the sidelines of the 78th ATS senior national badminton tournament here on Saturday.
Ever since PV Sindhu graduated to the senior level, the junior girls segment has been dominated by Rituparna and G. Ruthvika Shivani. Both have been finalists in the last two editions of the junior nationals - Shivani in Imphal (2012) and Rituparna in Chandhigarh (2013).
Rituparna, who trains at the Gopichand Academy in Hyderabad, marched into the quarterfinals of the senior nationals when Shriyanshi Pardeshi, who registered an upset win on the first day, conceded her pre-quarters tie while trailing 12-21, 1-2.
"Winning the junior nationals has been a big step up for me. I lost to Ruthvika in Imphal last year but I knew I could beat her. So the win in Chandigarh this time around was really special," the Bengal girl, who has won the national crown at the U-19, U-17 and U-13 level, said.