Ritika Thaker attended Sanjeevani World Sport Academy in Kandivali, Mumbai for her schooling years. She showed an inclination towards badminton from a very young age and started training at the school's badminton academy under coach Samir Berde.

At PPBA, Ritika trained under renowned coaches like U. Vimal Kumar and Arvind Bhat. She won medals at state and national level junior tournaments like the All India Junior Ranking tournaments. In 2013, Ritika was part of the Indian team that won bronze at the Asia U-17 & U-15 Badminton Championships in Nanjing, China.

Ritika made her international debut on the senior circuit in 2014 at the Austrian International Challenge.

In 2017, Ritika reached the semifinals of the Welsh International, her best result until then on the BWF circuit. She won her first senior international title at the 2018 Dubai International Challenge, defeating Japan's Saena Kawakami in the final.

2019 was a breakthrough year where Ritika established herself among the top badminton players in India. She won 4 titles on the BWF Tour - the Polish International, Latvia International, Croatia International and Portuguese International. Her ranking rose to a career-best 49 by the year-end.

Ritika's dream of representing India at the Olympics was realized in 2021 when she qualified for the delayed Tokyo Games based on her rankings. Though she lost in the opening round to Korea's An Seyoung, the Olympics experience proved to be valuable exposure.

Post the Tokyo Olympics, Ritika switched her training base to the Pullela Gopichand Academy in Hyderabad under the guidance of coaches Siyadath Ullah and Bu Wong Muk. This coaching switch seemed to pay dividends as she won the Odisha Open, her first Super Tour 100 title, in January 2022.

Later in 2022, Ritika won gold at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham after defeating Michelle Li of Canada in the final. This was her first medal at a multi-discipline games event.

2023 has been another fruitful year so far for Ritika. She reached the finals of the German Open and Korean Open on the BWF Tour. Her current world ranking is a career-best 22, placing her as the third highest ranked Indian women's singles player behind P.V. Sindhu and Malvika Bansod.