PANJIM: Host Goa will pose a stiff challenge to competing States of the West Zone badminton championship which gets underway on September 19, at Indoor stadium, Campal-Panjim, pinning its hopes especially on Parteek Mahajan and T Krishna in the men category and Anura Prabhudesai and Anushka Kuvelkar in the women category specially in the junior girls (U-19).
The West Zone Inter-State Badminton Championships which is being hosted by the Goa Badminton Association in collaboration of Sports Authority of Goa, will see reigning champions Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Chhattisgarh apart from host Goa.
Addressing the media in a city hotel, Richard D’Souza, Goa Badminton Association President disclosed that Goa was set to showcase its talent and have a very good chance to make it to the finals.
He pointed out that two of the players Parteek and Krishna were excellent players who through the sports quota found posting in the Comptroller and Auditor General of India office in Goa.
“Mahajan from Punjab and Krishna from Andhra Pradesh are players of calibre,” he said.
Anura, a silver medalist at the last West Zone in Haryana and Anushka India’s mixed double player are also likely to create a flutter in the Junior Girls (U-19) competition.
Narahar Thakur, secretary, Goa Badminton Association informed that the men will be playing for the Rahimtoola Cup for men, the women will play for the Chadha Cup while the junior boys (U-19) will train their sight on the Narang Cup. The junior girls (U-19) will play for the Shafi Quereshi Cup.
He pointed out that the top most seed of this championship is Subhankar Dey, who is India fourth seed and Maharashtra’s captain.
Other noted players are Kabir Kanzarkar, Karishma Wadkar, Vineet Kamble (Maharshtra) Anoushka Parikh (Gujarat), Pratul Joshi, Anurag Thakkar, (Madhya Pradesh) and Manish Gupta, Pawan Malik and Shreyansh Jaiswal of Chhattisgarh.
To a query as to why the newly built state-of-the-art Peddem complex was not selected as the venue, Thakur informed that all the outstation team officials preferred Campal, due to its ambience, being in close proximity to the beach and Panjim city.
Badminton Association of India approved Melvin Minoy will be the Chief Referee of the competition and will be assisted by local umpires.
Each State will field three singles and two doubles in the men section while in the women, junior boys and girls the format will be two singles and one doubles.
The championship will be commissioned by Sports Minister Ramesh Tawadkar in the presence of Chief Secretary B Vijayan while Union Minister of State for Tourism Shripad Naik will draw the curtains on the championship on September 29 in the presence of Chief Secretary B Vijayan.
Others present were Ashok Menon, organizing vice chairman; Sandeep Heble, Goa team manager and Luciano Soares, technical committee official.
