TOP badminton players in the region are set to clash in the UAE Exchange Bahrain International Challenge Badminton Tournament which gets underway today at 6pm at Bahrain Keraleeya Samajam (BKS) in Segaiya.
The tournament is conducted by BKS in association with Bahrain Badminton and Squash Federation (BB&SF).
The highlight of the first day is the presence of former All England Champion and presently Indian national coach Pullela Gopichand who will be inaugurating the event.
Gopichand is a renowned world class coach and is the person behind the resurgence of India as a badminton force. Saina Nehwal, the London Olympics bronze medal winner, and P Kashyap are two of his best known students.
The Bahrain International Challenge is an event sanctioned by the Badminton World Federation (BWF) and Badminton Asia Confederation (BAC) with the prize money of $15,000 at stake.
This event carries world ranking points and has attracted top ranked players from all over the world.
Competition will be held in five categories – men’s singles, men’s doubles, women’s singles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles.
Upset
Niluka Karunaratne, who is ranked 36 in the world, is the top seed in the event. The 27-year-old Sri Lankan was the captain of his national team at the London Olympics earlier this year and he upset the world No 8 Kanichi Tago in the singles event.
The next best ranked players in the fray are Suppanyu Avihingsanon of Thailand with a world ranking of 64 and seeded second here, and Sai Praneeth of India with a world ranking of 65 and seeded third.
Avihingsanon recently took part in the Japan Super Series while Praneeth is a bronze medal winner in the doubles at the Youth Commonweatlh Games in 2008 and won silver in the Junior Indonesian Challenge 2009.
HS Prannoy, ranked fourth, and Chetan Anand are two other well-known faces from India in the fray.
Prannoy reached the third round of the Vietnam Open earlier this year while Anand is a four-time Indian national champion.
In the women’s section, Neslihan Yigit and Ozge Bayrak, both of Turkey, are the two top ranked players with world rankings of 45 and 66 respectively. They are seeded first and second respectivley.
Anne Hald Jensen of Denmark is another notable entrant with a world ranking of 87 and is seeded third.
Bahraini players, meanwhile, will be participating in all five categories.
The most prolific among the local players are the doubles pair of Al Sayed Jafar Ebrahim Jafar, who is the national team captain, and Heri Setiawan. They are second seeded this year and were last year’s semi-finalists.
There are two more members from the Jafar family participating in this year’s tournament – his brother Ebrahim Jafar Al Sayed Hamed, who is pairing with another Bahrain player Saied Taki, and his brother’s son Adnan Ebrahim, who will play in the qualification matches.
Entry is free on all days.
UAE Exchange are the title sponsors of the event and other major sponsors are Zain Bahrain, Bahrain Air, Berger Paints, Mark 7, Maison Interiors, Al Mahroos, Albi WLL and Chevron.
source: http://www.gulf-daily-news.com / Home> Sports News / Tuesday, November 06th, 2012