Action begins at North Central Province Open Badminton Tournament

From left: NCPBA Tournament Director Princely Cook, North Central Province Director Sports Sumith Somarathna, SLB Vice President and Tournament Committee Chairman Parakrama Basnayake and NCPBA President Chaminda Lokubarana 

The North Central Province Open Badminton Tournament, one of the prominent competitions in the country’s badminton calendar, kicked off at two venues in Anuradhapura on Tuesday.

Over 1,000 shuttlers are vying for honours during the six-day event and the matches are being conducted at the Anuradhapura Urban Council courts and the Mike Cooke Indoor Badminton Stadium.

Parakrama Basnayake.Vice President SLB and Chairman tournament committee

North Central Province Badminton Association is organising the event on a majestic scale under the supervision of Sri Lanka Badminton (SLB).

Competitions are being held under nine age groups, namely U-11, 13, 15, 17, 19, over 40, 50, 55 and 60. 

Yesterday’s inauguration ceremony was attended by Housing Construction and Cultural Affairs Minister Sajith Premadasa and newly-elected Sri Lanka Badminton (SLB) President Rohan de Silva.

Although located far from the action-packed capital, the region has produced rare talents in the calibre of prominent coach A.M. Wimalarathna, multiple South Asian Games silver and bronze medallist Renu Chandrika de Silva, former and current stars like Vimal Halangoda, Mike Cooke, Udara Jayasundara, etc. over the years. 

Sri Lanka Badminton which is under a new management following the recently held general election, hopes to bring back the past glory to the region through hosting such major ranking tournaments and also expects to find and groom talented shuttles and help them reach new heights.  The organisers also hope the tournament will play an important role in finding talented shuttlers for future international events.    

Sri Lanka Badminton association has laid down a few conditions to improve the standards of the tournament in consultation with the North Central province badminton association. Some of them are, using latest tournament software of World Federation to handle the entries and the draw it will also be used to do the match scheduling and notify the players well in advance of the times of their matches. This would almost eliminate players having to wonder around the whole day waiting for their individual games.

Playing most of the matches on the synthetic carpet is another improvement. Due to the large number of entries the deployment of technical officers has also been strengthened in order to give an accurate decision 

This is the first top tanking tournament that the new committee of SLB is organising and it is gratifying to see all vice presidents and executive committee members of the Association getting together with the NCP officials to ensure all arrangements being made.