Thursday, December 13, 2007

Aditi, Kashyap emerge champs

Finals:
Women's Single
Aditi Mutatkar (Mah) bt Trupti Murgunde (PET) 19-21,21-10,21-15
Men's Singles
Kashyap P (AP) bt Anand Pawar(AI) 16-21,21-19,21-15
Men's Doubles
Sanave Thomas/ Rupesh Kumar (Ker) Akshay Dewalkar/ Diju. V (AI/ Ker)21-19,22-24,21-11

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

It's Kashyap vs Anand Pawar

Bangalore: The top seeds at the Canara Bank All India tournament progressed into the finals, with Aditi Mutatkar setting up a showdown with Trupti Murgunde, and Kashyap and Anand Pawar doing likewise in the men's singles.
Aparna Balan and Jyothsna won the women's doubles title, beating Ruth Misha and Soumya Padhye.
Results:
Women's Singles (SEMIFINALS)
Trupti Murgunde bt Gayatri Vartak 21-17,21-8; Aditi Mutatkar bt Ashwini Ponnappa 21-12,21-16
Men's Singles (SEMIFINALS)
Kashyap P bt Jishnu Sanyal 18-21,21-8,21-13; Anand Pawar bt Sagar Chopda 21-16,21-14

Women's Doubles (FINALS)
Aparna Balan/ Jyothsna bt Saumya Padhye/ Ruth Misha 21-18,21-15

Men's Doubles (SEMI-FINALS)
Sanave Thomas/ Rupesh Kumar bt Ram C Vijay/Utsav Mishra W/O
Akshay Dewalkar/ Diju V Jayan James/Dinesh T 21-16,17-21,21-13

Monday, December 10, 2007

Aditi, Trupti in semis

Bangalore: Trainees of the Padukone Academy have had an excellent tournament so far (Canara Bank All India Senior Ranking), with all four women's semifinal spots. Two of the four men's semis places have also been booked by Academy trainees.
The best match on Monday morning in the women's was Ashwini Ponnappa's three-game upset of BR Meenakshi 21-16,11-21,24-22; in the men's, V Amar gave Sachin Ratti a tough time but lost 21-19,18-21,21-18; both in the pre-quarters.


Women's Singles (QUARTERFINALS)
119 Trupti Murgunde PET Ruth Misha KTK "21-17,21-10"
120 Gayatri Vartak MAH Aparna Balan KER "21-11,21-19"
121 Ashwini Ponnappa KTK Dhanya Nair RLY "21-13,18-21,21-13"
122 Aditi Mutatkar MAH Sampada Sahasrabudde MAH "21-10,21-16"

Men's Singles (QUARTERFINALS)
57 Kashyap.P AP Gurusai Dutt.R.M.V. AP "21-17,21-19"
58 Jishnu Sanyal AI Sachin Ratti RLY "21-15,14-21,21-11"
59 Sagar Chopda MAH Ravindra Singh UP "26-24,21-16"
60 Anand Pawar AI Utsav Mishra AI "21-19,21-10"

Women's Doubles (SEMIFINALS)
136 Aparna Balan/ Jyothsna KER/ AP Anita Ohlan/ Dhanya Nair RLY "21-18,21-19"
137 Saumya Padhye/ Ruth Misha KTK Deepthi Shalini/ Deepthi Priyadarshini AP "15-21,21-19,21-11
Men's Doubles (QUARTERFINALS)
88 Sanave Thomas/ Rupesh Kumar KER Kiran Kumar.B/ Tanishak. K AP "21-16,21-13"
89 Ram.C.Vijay/Utsav Mishra KER/ AI Tanveer Gill/ Krishna. S.D.S DLI/ KTK "21-18,30-28"
90 Jayan James/ Dinesh.T AP Arjun Prasad/ Hersen. K.S KER "21-14,21-12"
91 Akshay Dewalkar/ Diju. V AI/ KER Jaseel.P.Ismail/ Jose George KER/ KTK "21-12,21-19"

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Gayatri reaches Welsh semis


4 Dec 07
ACADEMY trainee Gayatri Vartak notched up her best performance in international Badminton reaching the semifinals of the Welsh International 2007 in Cardiff. In the semis, Gayatri lost to the eventual winner and world no. 53 Gill Pittard of England 16-21,9-21. On the way to the semis, Gayatri beat Munn Tzin Bong of England 21-16,21-10; Chioe Magee (Ireland) 23-21,21-12 and Atu Rosalina Sagita (Indonesia) in the quarters 21-18,15-21,21-15.
Gayatri, who is currently ranked 174 in the world, is sure to improve her ranking by a good margin when the new rankings are released on December 6. Gayatri, along with academy-mate Aditi Mutatkar, was training under British coach Tom John in London prior to participating in the European circuit tournaments.

Monday, December 03, 2007

Hong Kong Open goes China's way

2 Dec 07: Indonesia took two gold and China three at the Hong Kong Open -- Nova Widianto/ Lilyana Natsir and Markis Kido/ Hendra Setiawan getting atop the winners' podium. Good news for Indonesia as the Olympic race hots up.
There must have been some pressure on Lin Dan, but the champ came through in style against Chong Wei in three sets.
Final results :
WS : Xie Xingfang (CHN) beat Zhu Lin (CHN) : 21/19 – 21/14
MxD : Widianto/Natsir (INA) Vs Zheng/Gao (CHN) : 23/21 – 21/18 – 21/19
MS : Lin Dan (CHN) beat Lee Chong Wei (MAL) : 9/21 – 21/15 – 21/15
WD : Du/Yu (CHN) beat Zhang /Wei (CHN) : 22/20 – 13/21 – 21/17
MD : Kido/Setiawan (INA)beat Gunawan/Wijaya (USA/INA) : 21/12 – 18/21 – 21/13

Sunday, December 02, 2007

A letter... that won't make a difference

This is a letter addressed to LC Gupta, Secretary of Badminton Association of India. The letter has been sent by NC Sudhir, Secretary of the Karnataka association, before the BAI's Annual General Body meeting on Dec 8. I don't expect the AGM to be any different from its past versions. Officials who have been clinging to their posts for the last decade or two will continue; dissidents won't raise their voice; and Indian badminton will continue to be hounded. This letter is remarkable because it raised the issue of age-group violations. Several of India's so-called junior champions are really five or six years older than they claim they are; in fact, some have even submitted three or four different certificates. Andhra Pradesh's Sikki Reddy, a protege of national chief coach P Gopichand, is a proven culprit. She has already started representing the national team...
At a recent junior tournament in Dehra Dun, several coaches and parents protested the rampant age-group violations. Senior coach Roshan Lal Nahar staged a fast and forced the organisers to conduct tests. The tests proved that nearly 40 contestants were illegally participating. National coach Gopichand's home state Andhra has a terrible record -- around 37 violations were reported!
I don't expect this letter to make any difference because the senile LC Gupta will brush it off and the other officials will only be too happy to play along. Nevertheless, full credit to Sudhir and others in the KBA.

Shri L C Gupta
Hon Secretary
Badminton Association of India

Sir,

Sub: AGM Agenda

We are in receipt of your meeting notice. I will be attending the meeting on 5th December as informed and will be reaching Guwahati on the 4th Morning.

1. Calendar of events: As regard to planning the forthcoming tournament season, we are of the opinion that Badminton Association of India should have a vibrant domestic circuit. In the last one and a half years we have observed that after senior national championships in January there is no tournament scheduled for the next 11 months for seniors and then in December and January all tournaments are scheduled for seniors prior to the nationals. This sort of scheduling is very taxing for the players and in the process players tend to miss out on certain tournaments resulting in organizers losing face and sponsors backing off from supporting tournaments. As you agree, some top players get to play international tournaments, but many others need to play tournaments during the season and the best way for that is to have national ranking tournaments spread out during the calendar year. This will help the next line of players to come up and I have taken the expert opinion of Mr. Prakash Padukone and Mr. Vimal Kumar and they vouch for the above suggestion.

Last year we had requested to conduct a team championship event on the Sudirman Cup format for the top 8 states. In fact it was given the approval but no dates were allotted for this event. This event is very important considering our preparations and the format involved for the 2010 Commonwealth Games. The top 8 state can field a maximum of 8 players / state which include 4 Men and 4 Women along with 2 officials. The state must ensure that players residing in the state alone can represent that state. This can generate tremendous media attention and interest among the states. The winning state team will be given Rs.1 Lakh as prize money and the runner-up Rs.50,000/- . The duration of the tournament will be 4 days. The boarding and lodging and 3 tier A/c travel charges will be borne by the host association of all the participating teams. We are prepared to do this event on a regular basis for the next 3 years.

To make Badminton Association of India’s calendar of events for the next season more vibrant, our association is prepared to conduct the following events during the months given below: -

Date Tournament Prize Money Category
1.June ’08 UBI All India Junior Ranking Tournament 3 Lakhs U-13, U-16,
U-19
2.July ’08 TATA Open Senior Tournament 5 Lakhs Men & Women
3.September ’08 Inter State (Sudirman Cup Format)
4.December ’08 TATA Open Senior Tournament 5 Lakhs Men & Women
5.January ’08 Canara Bank Senior Tournament 5 Lakhs Men & Women


We are also prepared to take up the Junior or Senior Nationals of 2008. We would appreciate if we are allotted the Senior National Championships.

2. OVERAGED PLAYERS:

We are very concerned about the recent happenings in Dehra Dun during the sub-junior national championships related to overaged players. We have clear evidence in the form of the certificates in our records of certain players with different age certificates submitted for junior tournaments over the years. The sad part is some of these players have gone on to win the national sub-junior titles in Dehra Dun. It is a shame that BAI has failed to initiate action against these players who have produced two to three different birth certificates. In fact our coach and manager complained that they were not given the result of the medical tests conducted on certain players in Dehra Dun.

We suggest that an independent medical board test all players who won the sub-junior national title in Dehra Dun in a very transparent manner immediately. The credibility of BAI is at stake here and the best punishment for the offenders can be barring them from playing in any age category events in future. BAI need not have to worry about the consequences and these norms can be incorporated in the BAI by laws. Catching a culprit when there is clear evidence will never go against the BAI. All that BAI need to show is some firmness in dealing with this problem and we are sure that all state units will stand firmly behind BAI in dealing with this age old problem.

We request BAI to take the above suggestions in the right spirit. Look forward to meeting you in Guwahati next week.

Yours sincerely,
Sudhir N C
Hon Secretary
Karnataka Badminton Association

Anand Pawar bows out in Scottish semis

26 Nov 07
ANAND PAWAR'S fine run at the Scottish Open came to an end when he was beaten in the semifinals by promising Japanese youngster Kenichi Tago in a thrilling three-setter 21-12, 9-21, 19-21. Anand, having won the first game comfortably at 21-12 could not sustain the pace and lost the second game 9-21. In the decider Anand led 19-17 but the Japanese won the next four points and the match at 21-19.

The Japanese then went on to win the title beating German No.1 Bjoern Joppien in the final 21-11,15-21,18-21.

Anand Pawar along with Aditi Mutatkar will now return to India to compete in the Indian Satellite event to be held in Guwahati from December 1.

Anand Pawar progresses at Scottish

24 Nov 07

ANAND PAWAR (21) has moved into the quarterfinals of the Scottish Open Badminton Championships in progress at Glasgow. Anand in his opening round upset rising Danish star Jan O Jorgensen in straight games (21-14, 23-21) and followed that up with straight games wins over Scott Evans (Ireland no.1 and world no.45) 21-14, 21-18 and French No.1 Erwin Kehlhoffner (21-13, 21-19). Anand on Saturday will play Andrea Dabaka, the top Canadian in the quarterfinals.

Anand Pawar, a trainee of the Padukone Academy, has been training in Aarhus, Denmark, for the past two months under Danish great Morten Frost. The academy has sent Anup Sridhar and Anand Pawar to train under Morten and also play the European tournaments during October/November. Anup Sridhar had to cut short his training programme and return to India due to a heel injury.

In the women’s singles, Aditi Mutatkar made good progress beating Jill Pittard of England 22-20, 21-11 before losing to Japanese player Kanako Yonekura 16-21,18-21 in the pre-quarterfinals.

Canara Bank All India tournament

PRESS RELEASE
21 Nov 2007

THE new national senior badminton circuit gets underway at Bangalore in the second week of December with the Third Canara Bank All India Senior Ranking Badminton Tournament. This event will be played at the K Raheja Badminton Stadium in Bangalore between December 8 and 12. The total prize money on offer will be Rs.5 lakh. Qualifying rounds will be played on December 8 and the tournament proper from the next day. In all there will be four events -- men’s and women’s singles and doubles (no mixed doubles). The winner of the men’s singles is likely to get around Rs.1 lakh as prize money. This event is likely to attract all the top players of the country as the performance will be considered for selection of Indian team for the Thomas/Uber cup and the European circuit to be held during February/March 2008. This event will be held under the aegis of Karnataka Badminton Association and is being coordinated by Padukone Sports Management. While Canara Bank will be the main sponsor, HDFC Mutual Fund and Yonex will be the co-sponsors.