Int'l tourney after chaos

Yonex-Sunrise Bangladesh Open Badminton International Challenge gets underway tomorrow at the Shaheed Suhrawardi Indoor Gymnasium in Mirpur with over 104 shuttlers from 13 countries participating in the five-day competition.

The shuttlers will compete in five events in the 17,550-dollar prize money tournament. The events are: men's singles and doubles, women's singles and doubles and mixed doubles.

“It is an international ranking tournament which we have been organising since 2013 with the help of Yonex-Sunrise and through this tournament the players can improve their ranking,” Bangladesh Badminton Federation's (BBF) acting general secretary Golam Aziz Jilani said at a press conference yesterday.

No Bangladeshi shuttlers have ever managed to reach the knockout stages of any singles events previously even though Bangladesh reached quarterfinals in mixed doubles. This time too there is no specific target set by the 15 Bangladeshi shuttlers, whose preparation has been hampered by a group of shuttlers over control of the Badminton Payers' Welfare Association.

Since the incident happened on Thursday, the national players refrained from training, demanding security from the federation. They however returned to training yesterday evening after BBF president Abdul Malek sat with them and ensured that exemplary measures will be taken against the perpetrators.