Kashyap should now target the quarters

The surprise loss of Japanese Kenichi Tago has raised India’s P Kashyap’s chances of reaching the quarterfinals if he manages to cross the group stage hurdle on Tuesday.

The Commonwealth Games bronze medallist is against Vietnam’s Tien Minh Nguyen in the Group D encounter on Tuesday and whoever wins the encounter would advance to the knock out stage as group winner.

Kashyap has a head to head record of 2-3 against Nguyen and hasn’t beaten the Vietnamese in the last three meetings. However, the Indian is in good form since qualifying for the Olympics and has already beaten world number three Chen Long of China in the Indonesia Super Series premier last month.

The group winner would face the group C winner Niluka Karunaratne of Sri Lanka, who got the better of Tago 21-18, 21-16 in the two-man group to advance to the pre-quarterfinals.

London Olympics: Saina handed a good draw, tough for doubles pairs

World number five Saina Nehwal’s chances of bagging India’s maiden Olympic medal in badminton received a major boost on Monday when the 22-year-old was handed a good draw till the quarterfinals.

The Commonwealth Games gold medallist was clubbed with world number 55 Lianne Tan of Belgium and world number 65 Sabrina Jaquet of Switzerland in Group E. Saina hasn’t played both the girls before.

Only the group leader would qualify for the knock out stage.

In the pre-quarterfinals, Saina is expected to face 14^th seed Yao Jie of Netherlands. The veteran Jie trails the Indian ace 2-3 in head-to-head records and hasn’t managed to beat Saina since 2009.

The Indonesia Super Series Premier champion’s first real test could come at the quarterfinal stage where she faces fifth seed and two-time All England champion Tine Baun of Denmark.

Baun, however, hasn’t been in best of form this year and has lost to Saina in their last two meetings.

If Saina manages to clear the last eight hurdle, she could come across her first Chinese opponent – top seed and world champion Yihan Wang.

The Indian ace came close to beating her 2006 junior world championship nemesis in last year’s Indonesia Super Series and should be confident of registering her maiden victory over the Chinese girl if they face off in the semifinals.

Decent draw for Kashyap

While Saina was handed a good draw, men’s singles star P Kashyap should at least aim to reach the knock out stage in his maiden Olympic appearance.

The world number 23 has been clubbed with Vietnam’s Tien Minh Nguyen and Yuhan Tan of Belgium. Kashyap has already beaten the number 10 seed Nguyen twice before and given his style of play could once again spring a surprise.

Tough for doubles stars

However, the doubles stars had no such luck in the draw and would have to play exceptionally well to move beyond the group stages.

All the groups in the doubles events are of four teams each and the top two teams from each group would qualify for the quarterfinals.

World championship bronze medallist Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa have been paired with world number five Mizuki Fujii/Reika Kakiiwa of Japan, world number 10 Chen Wen Hsing/Chien Yu Chin of Chinese Taipei and world number 13 Shinta Mulia Sari/Yao Lei of Indonesia in Group B.

While the Indian combination has a 1-2 head-to-head record with the first two pairs, they are 0-3 down against the Indonesians.

In the mixed doubles, Jwala and V Diju are in a group of death with all their three opponents having the experience of either winning a world championship or a Olympic gold in the past.

The world number 13 combination has been placed in Group C along with 2009 world champions Thomas Laybourn and Kamilla Rytter Juhl of Denmark, third seed Liliyana Natsir and Tontowi Ahmad of Indonesia and world number nine Lee Yong Dae and Ha Jung Eun of Korea.

The Indian pair has beaten only the Koreans in the past and have always found it difficult to overcome the Chinese and Danish combinations.

Asian U-19 championship: Sindhu creates history

P V Sindhu created history on Saturday when he became the first Indian shuttler to win the Badminton Asia Youth U-19 championship in Gimcheon, Korea.

The world number 25, who had lost in the semifinal of the last edition of the competition, got the better of second seed Nozomi Okuhara of Japan 18-21, 21-17, 22-20 in the girl’s singles final to achieve a feat that compatriot Sameer Verma failed to conquer in Lucknow last year.

The Gopichand Academy trainee went into the summit clash high on confidence having won all her previous round matches without dropping a game.

However, the final was far from smooth sailing for the junior and senior national champion. She struggled to get off the blocks in the first game and had to fight back in the second and third.

In the decider, Sindhu trailed 19-16 before claiming four straight points to earn her first match point. She wasted that opportunity but claimed the second to lift the title.
"I cannot describe how happy I am. It is yet to sink in," she told this correspondent from Korea.
Sindhu said the real confidence booster for her was when she managed to beat her last year nemesis Yu Sun in the quarterfinals.
"When I was trailing 19-16 in the decider, I was a bit tensed. But all ended well and I am happy about it," she added.

Road to title

First Round: beat Ryu Young Seo (Korea) 21-11, 21-13

Second Round: beat Rina Andriani (Indonesia) 21-10, 21-19

Quarterfinal: beat 6-Yu Sun (China) 22-20, 21-19

Semifinal: beat 3-Busanan Ongbamrungphan (Thailand) 21-19, 21-16

Final: beat 2-Nozomi Okuhara (Japan) 18-21, 21-17, 22-20

Asia U-19 championship: Sindhu in final

National champion P V Sindhu stayed on course to become the first Indian shuttler to lift the Badminton Asia Youth U-19 championship title when she defeated third seed Busanan Ongbamrungphan of Thailand 21-19, 21-16 in the semifinals in Gimcheon, Korea, on Friday.

The Gopichand Academy trainee hasn’t lost a game in this tournament so far and in the final would face Japanese second seed Nozomi Okuhara, who got the better of her compatriot Akane Yamaguchi 21-19, 21-9 in the other semifinal.

This is the first time any Indian girl’s singles player has managed to reached the summit clash of the Asian championship. Sindhu came close to that feat last year but went down against Chinese Yu Sun at the last four stage.

However, the top seed took a revenge of sorts over the Chinese when she got the better of Sun in the quarterfinals here.

While Sindhu is chasing history, compatriot Sameer Verma would not get a chance to improve on his runners up finish last year after he went down 13-21, 21-18, 21-9 against third seed Kento Momota of Japan in the semifinals.

Govt employees can’t 'serve' sports bodies beyond one term

The influence of bureaucrats and government officials on the sports bodies is likely to reduce considerable with the Union Sports Ministry making it clear that no government employee can hold an elective office at any level of the federation for more than four years or one term, whichever is less.
Surprisingly the circular, issued on April 3, 2012, has hardly led to a debate like the one that was initiated by many sports federations when the proposed draft of the National Sports Bill attempted to restrict the tenure of the office bearers to 12 years with an age cap of 70.
According to the earlier provisions, government employees only had to seek permission from his/her department to contest elections or accept a position on the sports bodies. For year, bureaucrats ruled the sports federation at the district and state levels before politicians began replacing them in the last two decades.
Federations failing to make amendments to their constitution accordingly would not be recognised.
The circular clearly mentions that the state governments and union territories should also amend their laws accordingly. May be, it’s time for government officials to concentrate on the job at hand.

GMBA district meet needs to be better organised

If you thought that playing matches well past midnight was a problem only on the international circuit or junior ranking tournaments in India, then you haven’t visited the Greater Mumbai Inter District tournament this week.

For the first two days the matches went well beyond midnight. Unlike the other two categories of tournaments listed above where the duration of individual matches or extremely high number of entries has been the reason for the long schedule, the story of GMBA inter-district tournament was about mismanagement and callous approach by the officials.

For the start, chief referee TRN Swami was not available at the venue (Swami insists that he had informed the organisers that he wasn’t available and hence should not be nominated as Chief Referee) and hence the players and non-qualified people ended handling the responsibility of preparing the schedule and conducting the tournament.

While Swami was unavailable due to personal reasons, the district body did not appoint any other qualified officials to oversee the proceedings, which created further issues during the matches as the players and even the spectators were seen protesting some of the decisions taken by the on-court officials.

The district championship is conducted in six age categories and had about 330 entries, which meant that there were about 75-80 matches to be played per day during the first round. This meant that the officials had to be strict about maintaining the schedule.

However, what was surprising was that some players were allowed to come at their own convenience and many a times the other team had to wait for an hour or two beyond the scheduled time just because their opponents came late.

Instead of giving walkovers, the organisers preferred delaying the schedule and penalising those who came on time.

The bigger problem is about the officiating. Greater Mumbai Badminton Association, headed by Kulin Manek, has a dearth of qualified officials and those in the Mumbai Suburban prefer to stay away from the district meet over payment issues.

With Swami also missing in action, there was no qualified official to take a decision about walkovers during the tournament and created a bigger havoc.

It’s time the GMBA gets its house in order. 

BAI announces Rs 10 lakh award for Saina

Badminton Association of India president Akhilesh Das Gupta has announced a award of Rs 10 lakh for world number five Saina Nehwal in appreciation for her back-to-back victories in the Thailand Open Grand Prix gold tournament and the Indonesia Super Series Premier last week.
In Indonesia, Saina became the first Indian shuttler to have won a Super Series Premier title.
“We look forward to lots of such laurels from our players. We are confident that these titles will be followed by medals in the forthcoming London Olympic Games 2012," said Das Gupta.