Rituparna, Joshi bag junior national singles title

Rituparna Das ended G Ruthvika Shivani's hopes of a second consecutive double crown with a straight games hammering in the under-19 girls' singles final while second seed Aditya Joshi of Air India ended the Houdini act of Kerala's Arun George to lift the under-19 boys title in the 38th Junior National Badminton Championships here today.
The Kolkata girl, who now plays for Andhra Pradesh after shifting base to Hyderabad, proved too good for the defending champion to win 21-14 21-7 to add the u-19 national title to the u-13 and u-17 national crowns she had won in the past and completed a double crown herself by also bagging the girls doubles title with J Meghana.

The encounter between the country's two top most juniors was expected to go down the wire but Rituparna never allowed her opponent to get a foot-hold in the match.
She was deceptive at the net and came up with some timely drops to tackle the reach of the lanky Khamman girl, who had earlier got the better of Maharashtra's Karishma Wadkar in the u-17 final.
Karishma, playing in her maiden national final, managed to push the defending champion in the first game but a few unforced errors at the crucial moment cost her dearly.
In the boys' under-19 final, Arun who had staged improbable comebacks in the pre-quarterfinals and the semifinals began on the positive note but once Joshi got his rhythm going it was a one-way traffic.

The boy from Madhya Pradesh, who trains at the Prakash Padukone academy in Bangalore, kept Arun away from the net and used his big smash to good effect to kill the rallies and pocket the match 18-21 21-12 21-14 in 48 minutes.
In the u-17 boys' singles final, S Daniel Farid ended the dream run of B R Sankeerth 21-11 21-14.