Indian Shuttlers leave for Japan for Thomas Cup

Bangalore, Apr 25 (UNI) An 11-member Indian Badminton team left here tonight for Japan to participate in the Thomas Cup finals to be held in Tokyo from April 28 to May seven.

The shuttlers attended a 15-day training camp under the guidance of foreign coach Hogli Sugiento and National Coach Vimal Kumar at Karnataka Badminton Association (KBA) here from April 10 to 25.

The team included Commonwealth Games Bronze Medalist Chetan Anand, National Champion Anup Sridhar, Rupesh Kumar, Jaseel P Ismail, Anand Pawar, Nikhil Kanetkar, V Diju, Thomas Kurian and Arvind Bhatt.

India was placed in Group 'A' along with strong contenders China and Germany. While Korea, Indonesia and New Zealand figured in Group B, Denmark, Japan and South Africa in Group 'C' and Malaysia, England and USA in Group 'D'.

This was the third time India was qualifying for the final leg of the Thomas Cup.

Kumar told newspersons that the team was well prepared. However, if it reached, the quarterfinals it would be a great achievement as the other teams in the Group were strong contenders.

Meanwhile, this would be the last tour of Kumar as National Coach as he had decided to step down in order to concentrate more on training youngsters at the Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy where he was the Director. He had already submitted his resignation to the the Badminton Association of India (BAI) and the latter had asked him to continue till the Thomas Cup finals.

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