All set for the individual events

By Prakash Padukone

SEVILLE, JUNE 3. Things are hotting up at the 6800 capacity San Pablo stadium in Seville, Spain where the 7th Sudirman Cup and the 12th World badminton championships is being staged.

The competition has already reached the half way mark with the successful completion of the mixed team event, the Sudirman Cup - named after the ex-president of the Indonesian Badminton Association and also the ex-president of International Badminton Federation.

As already reported, China successfully defended the cup for the fourth time in a row brushing aside the challenge posed by the mighty Danes, Koreans and the Indonesians. It looks as if China will continue to hold sway over the cup for some more time to come as it has a bunch of youngsters who are not only promising but also very determined. It will take some great effort from the other top countries to dislodge China.

The individual events of the World Championships were scheduled to begin from Sunday though the main rounds would commence only from Tuesday.

All the five events - men's singles, men's doubles, women's singles, women's doubles and mixed doubles would be played in two stages. Unlike in the other Grand Prix tournaments, there are no qualifying rounds in the World Championships. Instead the players compete in two stages with eight qualifying from the first stage to the second. The main draw in the men's singles has 64 entries with 56 getting direct entries. Only Gopi and Abhinn Shyam Gupta figure in the main draw of the men's singles and the other Indians have to get through the initial stage. Though the first stage is not very difficult, it remains to be seen how many Indians would actually make it to the second stage.

At the moment there are only two seven star tournaments which offer the maximum points for world ranking - World Championships and the Olympics. While grading of tournaments is normally done on the basis of prize money offered, IBF has made an exception in the case of World Championships and the Olympics by granting them seven star status despite there being no prize money for both these events. This shows the importance IBF attaches to both these tournaments.

The World Championships happens to be one of the most prestigious tournaments which every player likes to win. The major difference between this event and the other grand prix events like All England, Danish Open, Japan Open etc. is that entries in this championships is restricted to a maximum of four per country per event whereas any number of players from a country can take part in the other Open tournaments.

This is a bit of a handicap for stronger countries like China, Indonesia etc. which might have more than four good players/pairs in an event. Neverthless this tournament continues to be one of the toughest in the circuit.

In the women's singles all the four Indian girls - Manjusha, Meenakshi, Jwala and Shruti Kurian have been drawn to play in the first stage. They have to win at least four rounds before they can enter the main draw. Similarly in the men's section, Sidharth Jain and Chetan Anand also have to play similar number of rounds to proceed further.

Of the two, Sidharth has a better chance of going ahead as his toughest opponent is likely to be K. Shimogami of Japan in the final round. Chetan Anand is also expected to have an easy sailing till the final round when he is likely to run into Boonsak Polsana, a promising youngster from Thailand. This could be a tough match for Chetan as Boonsak has some good victories to his credit over some of the top ranked players. But if Chetan plays well, he is capable of putting it across Boonsak.

India has only two pairs each in the men's and women's doubles. The youngsters from Kerala Sanave Thomas and V. Diju have managed to get a direct entry to the second stage as a result of their triumph in the Hungarian Open.

Dabbaransi elected IBF President

There was hectic activity off the court as the annual general meeting of the International Badminton Federation was held on Sunday morning and the meeting assumed all the more importance as a new President was to be elected to the governing body. There was a lot of speculation whether the Sultan of Brunei, who had filed his nomination papers, would get elected as the next president of IBF.

As it turned out, His Majesty withdrew from the contest and Mr. Korn Dabbaransi, ex-deputy Prime Minister of Thailand and President of Asian Badminton Confederation, got elected as the President for a four year term.

He succeeds Madame Lu of China who relinquished office after serving as the President for 8 years. He has a big responsibility on his shoulders as badminton is poised for major changes in the game as well as administration.

Indian pairs advance

SEVILLE, JUNE 3. India had a fruitful day in the qualifying rounds of the World Championships with the mixed doubles and men's doubles teams winning their matches with ease here on Sunday.

The two mixed doubles pairs progressed into the third round of the qualifying draw while the men's doubles combination of Jaseel Ismail and Markose Bristow made it to the second round.

In the first round of the mixed doubles, V. Diju and P.V.V. Lakshmi outclassed Pavlos Charalambidis and Christina Mavromatidou of Greece 15-6, 15-1 and then in the second round, they had to struggle a bit before overcoming the Kazakh pair of Anuar Musafirov and Saule Kustavletova 15-11, 15-7.

The pair of Jaseel Ismail and Madhumita Bisht, who received a bye in the opening round were stretched all the way by Iceland Duo of Helgi Johannesson and Vigdis Asgeirsdottir before scraping through to a 15-13, 10-15, 15-5 win.

In men's doubles, Ismail, partnering Markose Bristow had no problems in disposing off the U.S. pair of Bob Malaythong and Trisna Gunadi 15-8, 15-9.

- PTI

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