The Hindu : Sport / Badminton : All-India championship from today

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Sep 16, 2004

Sport

Sport - Badminton

All-India championship from today

BANGALORE, SEPT. 15 . Canara Bank's all-India ranking badminton championship, which gets underway at the Indira Nagar Club courts here on Thursday, is the season's first senior event and has evoked a good response from the country's leading players.

Former All-England champion P. Gopi Chand, who was nursing an injury for the past two seasons will be back in action in singles.

Also in the fray are Olympians, Aparna Popat and Nikhil Kanetkar besides N. Arvind Bhat, Sachin Ratti, Trupti Murgune, B.R. Meenakshi and Saina Nehwal. The National men's champion, Abhinn Shyam Gupta has opted out due to personal reasons while Chetan Anand has pulled out owing to injury.

In doubles, there will be an interesting switch of partners with Sanave Thomas pairing up with Rupesh Kumar while Sanave's usual partner V. Diju is now teaming up with veteran Jaseel P. Ismail. The two new-look combinations have done well at the recent Singapore Open championship.

The championship assumes extra significance, as it will be a selection event along with the next senior ranking tournament at Sivakasi (September 21 to 24) for the European tour. An Indian squad will participate in the Toulouse Open (France), Scottish Open and Welsh Open championships, slated next month.

The championship, which is being managed by Prakash Padukone Sports Management, carries an overall prize money of Rs. 2. lakhs and the men's singles purse is worth Rs. 40,000. The women's champion will receive Rs. 25,000. The tournament is being conducted by Indira Nagar Club to mark its silver jubilee.

The qualifying rounds will be played on Thursday and eight qualifiers in the men's singles and four in the women's singles will make it to the main draw which begins on Friday. The finals are scheduled on September 19. Arvind Bhat (men) and Aparna Popat (women), both representing Petroleum Sports Board, are the top seeds.

The seedings:

Men: 1. Arvind Bhat (PSPB); 2. Utsav Misra (U.P.); 3. J.B.S. Vidhyadhar (PSPB); 4. Sachin Ratti (Rly.). Women: 1. Aparna Popat (PSPB); 2. Trupti Murgunde (PSPB); 3. Ch. Deepthi (PSPB); 4. Saina Nehwal (PSPB). — Our Special Correspondent

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