Junior national champion Anmol Kharb of Haryana and Under-17 national champion and Asian Under-17 Junior Championships silver medallist Tanvi Sharma of Punjab will be among the top contenders in the girls’ U19 category for the Yonex Sunrise 30th Smt Krishna Khaitan Memorial All India Junior Ranking Prize Money tournament from November 14 to November 20. The qualifying rounds run from November 14 to 16. The tournament, which is being organised by Express Shuttle Club Trust under the aegis of Haryana Badminton Association, will be played at the Multi-purpose Hall at the Tau Devi Lal Sports Complex. This is the penultimate ranking tournament of the year to be conducted by the Badminton Association of India (BAI). BAI President Himanta Biswa Sarma has sanctioned a total prize money of 4 lakh for the tournament. “We have got more than 1,150 entries for the tournament this year. The tournament happens to be the penultimate tournament in the BAI calendar this year and will offer ranking points to the players. Like the past, some of the top Indian junior players are competing in the tournament and players like junior national champion Anmol and junior Asian silver medallist Tanvi will be the top draw of the tournament,” said Sanjiv Sachdeva, organising secretary of the tournament. Top seed Dhruv Negi, second seed Lokesh Reddy, and third seed Ginpaul S will lead the charge in the boys’ U-19 category. In the mixed doubles U-19 category, Bhavya Chhabdra and Manya Ralhan have been drawn as top seeds while the pair of Bhavya Chhabra and Param Choudhary will be the top seeds in the boys doubles’ U-19 category. Gayatri Rawat and Mansa Rawat have been seeded first in the girls’ U-19 category. “The main draw for the boys as well as girls singles will be of 64 players each, while the rest of the categories will have a main draw of 32 players each. We have got more than 430 entries in the qualification draw of boys’ singles category while a total of 184 entries will be in the girls’ singles category. The tournament will be played on the ten wooden courts and a total of 25 BAI certified umpires will be conducting the tournament,” Sachdeva said. Greats of the game London Olympics bronze medallist Saina Nehwal had won the girls' singles title in 2005 while double Olympics medallist PV Sindhu won the title in 2010. Last year, Bharat Raghav had won the boys’ singles title while Tara Shah had won the girls’ singles title in the tournament. National coach Pullela Gopichand’s wife PVV Laxmi had become the first girls’ singles winner in 1991. “The tournament has been a platform for the emerging junior players of the country. In the past, the likes of Saina Nehwal, PV Sindhu and others have won the title here and went on to become international champions. Gian Chand Gupta, speaker Haryana Vidhan Sabha, will be the chief guest during the concluding ceremony of the championship,” Sachdeva said.
