THOUGH they have donned national colours on an earlier occasion, Nagpur’s top doubles specialist shuttlers Ritika Thaker and Simran Singhi expressed their happiness in once again representing India. The duo has made it to the Indian squad for the prestigious Uber Cup scheduled to be held at Chengdu, China from April 27 to May 5. Riding on their performances at National and International levels, they got this chance to represent India again. They won gold at Lagos International and a bronze at Maldives International. They secured a silver at senior nationals held in Guwahati where Maharashtra won gold in the team event. The pair was part of the team. At the National Games held in Goa, Ritika and Simran secured a silver. Ritika and Simran, who are training at Suchitra Academy in Hyderabad presently, were elated with the news.

 

“We are very happy to represent our country for the second time at this prestigious event. We are ready to give our best. Though India will be represented by a relatively new team of youngsters, we will give our best for the country,” both echoed the same sentiments. Double Olympic medallist PV Sindhu and the two top doubles pairs have opted out of the Uber Cup. Top women’s doubles pairs -- Treesa Jolly-Gayatri Gopichand and Ashwini Ponnappa and Tanisha Crasto -- withdrew as they chose to focus on the other assignments as they strive to earn the Olympics qualification. Following the withdrawal of Sindhu and the two pairs, Badminton Association of India (BAI) decided to reward the players who performed well at the Senior National Championships by including them in the India team.

 

“Sindhu opted out as she is coming back from an injury and she wants to give herself enough time to prepare for Paris Games where she will hope to win another medal for the country,” BAI Secretary Sanjay Mishra said. “The doubles pairs also decided to skip the event as they too have been playing a lot of tournaments and want to focus on their qualification, so we have rewarded the semi-finalists of the national championships by including them in the team.” Uber Cup squad: (Singles) Anmol Kharb, Tanvi Sharma, Ashmita Chaliha and Isharani Baruah; (Doubles) Shruti Mishra, Priya Konjengbam, Simran Singhi and Ritika Thaker.