Lathika will face the tournament top seed Sathwika Sama of Andhra Pradesh, who got past third seed Kaaviya Balasubramaniam of Tamil Nadu 6-2, 6-2, in the under-12 category final. <img alt="" src="/imagedata/2012/may/Lathika-Premkumar.jpg" style="width: 500px; height: 478px; " /> Lathika Premkumar returns during her semi-final against Ishwari Seth at CCI yesterday. Pic/Atul Kamble But her journey to the final could have been halted abruptly in the quarter-final. As the umpire was just about to award the match to her opponent eighth seeded Shivani Ingle of Maharashtra, Lathika &mdash; who was late to reach the venue &mdash; showed up. &ldquo;The quarter-final incident taught me a very important lesson about the value of time. I reached 20 minutes late for my singles quarter-final scheduled for 9.30 am. The confusion occurred as I had seen the previous day&rsquo;s schedule, and was under the impression that my match was at 10.30 am. I was shocked when I saw the referee was just about to give a walkover to my opponent Shivani,&rdquo; explained Lathika, who thrashed the eighth seed 6-0, 6-2 in the last eight encounter on Thursday. Earlier, in the pre-quarterfinal she stunned second seed Rutvi Shah of Gujarat. Lathika considers Mumbai as her lucky venue. &ldquo;The city has a special place in my heart. This is my first U-12 nationals and I reached the final here. Earlier, in March, I entered the finals of U-12 and U-14, but finished runners-up in the Championship series in Navi Mumbai,&rdquo; said the Bhavans Rajaji Vidyashram student. Meanwhile, Rajasthan&rsquo;s Udayan Bhakar and ninth seed Akshara Iska (AP) caused major upsets in U-16 boys&rsquo; and girls&rsquo; singles respectively. Akshara beat top seed Kamran Kaur 6-2, 4-6, 7-5, while Udayan defeated second seed Sachin Kumar 7-6 (3), 6-1. u00a0

Unseeded Lathika Premkumar used her lobs and soft touches tactfully to beat 16th seed Ishwari Seth of Maharashtra 6-2, 6-0 to make the final of the sixth Ramesh Desai Memorial National tennis championship at Cricket Club of India (CCI) tennis courts yesterday.

Timely lesson for Lathika before final

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Timely lesson for Lathika before final

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