Baddy star Shlok is a jolly good boy

He donated his earnings of Rs 5000 to Mother Teresa's charity home when he claimed the under-14 badminton title in 2007. Last year, he clinched the under-16 title in the very first year of competition in this category.

Clearly, blessings from above are landing on Shlok Ramchandra.

Shlok, who is the top seed in the boys' under-16 category, cruised past Rahul Munshi of Cathedral and John Connon (Fort) 21-6, 21-4 in the quarter-final of the Nike-MSSA inter-school badminton tournament at the Indian Gymkhana yesterday.

Student of Ryan International (Malad), Shlok is confident of retaining his title but doesn't want to take things lightly.

"Although I amu00a0 favourite to win this tournament, it's going to be a tough battle ahead. I don't want to be over-confident and will take each match at a time," the defending champion told MiD DAY after his win yesterday.

Shlok, who trains at the Uday Pawar Badminton Academy (UPBA), had two other boys from his academy doing exceptionally well in this tournament. The No 2 and 3 seeds Sushrut Karmarkar of Parle Tilak School and Siddhesh Mudhbatkar of Chatrabuj Narsee Memorial School won their matches against Akshat Kejriwal of Ryan International 21-11, 21-10 and Saideep Shetty of IES 21-6, 21-13 respectively. The UPBA boys now have won three of the four semi-final berths. "All the boys are very talented and extremely hardworking," said UPBA founder Uday Pawar.

But the coach rued the fact that his wards can't make a mark at the national level because of the over-age factor. "These players feel dejected and lose interest after losing against players who are much older. Action should be taken to curb this menace because it affects good players and the sport on the whole," he said.