Hadi (left) and BAM president Tengku Tan Sri Mahaleel Tengku Ariff (right) posing with the men’s singles winners during last year’s prize presentation ceremony in this file photo.
KUCHING: Over 200 players from 15 countries have confirmed taking part in the Maybank Kuching International Badminton Challenge 2014 at the State Indoor Stadium, Petra Jaya from Nov 11-16.
This was announced by Sarawak Badminton Association (SBA) secretary Abdul Hadi Abdul Kadir in a press statement yesterday.
“The response has been encouraging and several top national players are also taking part in the event including the men’s singles defending champion Mohamad Arif Abdul Latif and women’s singles defending champion Hsu Ya Ching of Chinese Taipei,” he said.
This is the third year that SBA is organising the event together with Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) and the five categories to be contested are namely men’s singles, women’s singles, men’s doubles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles.
“Badminton fans can look forward to a quality field of players when they play at the Stadium Perpaduan since it is not often that an international badminton tournament is organised locally,” said Hadi.
According to him, the tournament is a Level IV World Tournament which is sanctioned by Badminton World Federation (BMF) and Badminton Asia Confederation (BAC) and is offering a total prize money of US$15,000 (RM48,000).
Several of the players competing are world class and had competed at the recent Glasgow’s Commonwealth Games, last month’s Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea and the just concluded French Open badminton championship.
Hadi is confident that the participation of national back-up players in the event will thrill local badminton enthusiasts when they compete alongside with rising talents from other countries including Indonesia, Chinese Taipei, Australia, Brunei, Canada, India, Japan, Kazakhstan, New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
Those interested to catch the action at the Stadium Perpaduan are requested to contact SBA’s office at 082-579598 or 016-8938952 for the event’s tickets which are limited on first-come-first-serve basis.
SBA has also come up with a sponsorship programme where the private sector and individuals can sponsor school children to watch the matches with the aim to create their interest in taking up badminton as part of a healthy lifestyle.