N. Bhaavitha is gearing up for the sub juniors level, having sailed through the cadets category

Nagulapalli Bhaavitha inherited the ping pong genes from her table tennis player father Ravikanth. Before long, the duo roped in her five cousins to the game as well. She has since left all of them far behind, becoming Telangana state cadet girls champion two years in a row. “I used to play the game at the university level with my good friend Maduri Venugopal. So it was only natural that I entrusted my daughter to his coaching at Gujarati Seva Mandal,” says Ravikanth.

Starting off as a seven year old, Bhaavitha showed early promise. In 2013, she clinched the mini cadets girls crown at the Anandnagar Welfare Association (AWA) state ranking tournament. In the Secunderabad Public School tournament, she was the individual cadet champion and paired with Devyani for the team title as well.

The 12-year-old acknowledges the support she gets from class teacher ‘Sudip maam’ and ‘Principal Kasturi Chatterjee maam’ at Gitanjali Devashray School in Secunderabad. Although she travels quite a lot for the game including to the zonal events across the country, Bhaavitha has not slackened in studies.

In 2014 after finishing runner up in the St. Paul’s ranking championship, she went on to win the state ranking tournaments at Khammam in September, the Darga Pentappa memorial in October and the AWA event also in October.

The following year turned out to be even better, as she reached the rounds of 16 and eight in the national zonal championships.

Bhaavitha made sure she won the St. Paul’s title that had eluded her and then emerged cadet girls winner in the Mahavir Institute of Engineering & Technology, the AWA and Mahabubnagar state ranking tournaments culminating in the final triumph at the Nalgonda State championship. She had won the state cadet crown a stunning seven times !

Bhaavitha’s ambition is to follow in the footsteps of her academy mates and role models Nikhat Banu and Varuni Jaiswal and achieve at the international level. She’s keen to emulate their forehand topspin driven game as well.

Now that she’s through with the cadets category, the sprightly lass is gearing up for the next level, the sub-juniors. While others in school are enjoying their holidays, she’s sweating it out in the morning and evening in long practice sessions.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> MetroPlus / b A. Joseph Anthony / Hyderabad – March 16th, 2016