Record entries for Jr ranking tourney

Chennai, Jun 10 (UNI) A record number of 1300 players, including 900 boys and 350 girls, will be competing for honours in the Yonex-Sunrise 16th Smt Krishna Khaitan All India junior badminton tournament to be held at the Nehru Indoor stadium here tomorrow.

Organising Secretary of the Sanjiv Sachdeva and Secretary Tamil Nadu Badminton Association Ashok Bajaj told newspersons here last night that the tournament assumed much significance as the Indian team for Asian Junior Badminton championships to be held in Kuala Lumpur will be picked based on the performance of the players here.

The field for the competitions in the under-19, under-16 and under-13 singles and doubles, will have the country's top junior shuttlers in fray, including the Under-19 boys top seeded Jishnu Sanyal of Maharashtra, Koushik Pal of Bengal as the second seed and Amey Joshi (Mah) and Akshay Dewalkar(Mah). Mandya Pradesh's Abhimanyu Singh and Kerala's P C Thulasi are the top seeds in Under 16 singles.

In absence of Saina Nehwal who is the reigning champion, Neha Pandit (Mah) has seeded no 1 in the, under-19 girls section while her statemate Gayatri Vrtak is the second seed and Karnataka's G M Nischita the third seed. Mixed doubles competition will be held in the Under-13 section.

Nehwal, who created history winning the four star Philippines Open last week, is unable to defend her title as she will be competing in the Indonesian open, Mr Sachdeva said.

The national selectors including former international Dinesh Khanna and Ami Ghia will be meeting on June 16 to announce the Indian team for Asian Junior championship.

UNI VV AY RK1315