Gopi, Manjusha top seeds for BPL tourney

NEW DELHI, December 20: P Gopi Chand, who won the Masters title in the All-India tournament at Kochi earlier this week, has been top-seeded...

NEW DELHI, December 20: P Gopi Chand, who won the Masters title in the All-India tournament at Kochi earlier this week, has been top-seeded in the men’s singles for the BPL All-India Open badminton tournament, opening at the IG Stadium here tomorrow.

Defending women’s champion Aparna Popat, however, finds herself seeded second behind Manjusha Kanwar in the women’s singles of the Rs 4 lakh prize money tournament, restricted to seniors.

There will be events in men’s, women’s singles, doubles and mixed doubles. As many as 150 players are expected to take part in the five-day tournament to be held over two sessions. Apart from the eight who have been directly seeded in the men’s section, four from 40 must qualify. The qualification rounds are slated for two days, tomorrow and the day after while the main rounds start from December 23.

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In the doubles event for men, U Vinod Kumar and Rajiv Bagga lead the pairings with George Thomas/Markose Bristow, Jaseel P Ismail/Vijay Deep Singh and Roy Mathew and Anirudh Rao following them.

Among the women’s pairs, Manjusha Kanwar and Archana Deodhar lead the chart with Madhumita Bisht and Sindhu Gulati placed second.

Seedings: Men’s singles: Gopi Chand, Nikhil Kanetkar, Abhinshyam Gupta, Sushant Saxena, Shrikant Bakshi, Mangrish Palekar, Jason Xavier and Amrish Shinde.

Doubles: U Vinod Kumar/Rajiv Bagga, George Thomas/Markose Birstwo, Jaseel P Ismail/Vijaydeep Singh and Roy Mathew/Anirudh Rao.Women singles: Manjusha Kanwar, Aparna Popat, Neelima Choudhary, Larisa Sardangini.

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Doubles: Manjusha Kanwar/Archana Deodhar, Madhumita Bisht/Sindhu Gulati, Firoza Batliwala/Nazneen Karimi, Neelima Chaudhary/D Sweta.Mixed doubles: Madhumita Bisht/U Vinod Kumar, Vinaya Shetty/Rajiv Bagga.

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