A bunch of hungry young men and women will descend on Indore hoping to scrap for some morsels at a rare luncheon. The National badminton championships this week is only the second senior tournament on the domestic circuit since February last year.
The circuit will revive briefly with the prestigious championships, and afford several players an opportunity to stake their claim for a place in the national squad. The inter-state championships will be held on February 12 and 13, and the individual events from 14th to 18th.
With the withdrawals of the defending champions, the field has been thrown open. Not in recent history have both singles defending champions declined to defend their titles; in the event, as Chetan Anand and Saina Nehwal decided to skip the championships, attention will be on a few veterans and a host of fresh faces. “It looks like an open field,” says former national coach Vimal Kumar. “I would say the dark horse is Guru Sai Dutt.”
Arvind Bhat goes in as favourite. With Chetan Anand’s withdrawal, and with a healthy international season behind him, he has risen to a career-high no.27 in the world rankings. Anup Sridhar has had a terrible 2008 afflicted by injuries, but one can never say with him. The others to watch out for would be Anand Pawar — the Mumbaiite had an excellent European season with four titles; P Kashyap and Ajay Jayaram.
The ones likely to cause surprises include Bangalore’s Rohan Castelino, Mumbai’s Sagar Chopda and Kerala’s Thomas Kurian. The women’s is equally intriguing. With no.1 Saina and no.2 Aditi Mutatkar out of the way, Trupti Murgunde steps in as favourite, although she is still recovering from the effects of a back injury. Others to watch out for would be Neha Pandit, Sayali Gokhale, Gayatri Vartak, Sikki Reddy, Ruth Misha and Abantika Deka.
