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New Delhi, 26th March 2010: In a gala ceremony in the national capital, Mr. V.K. Verma, President, Badminton Association of India, today announced the dates for Asia’s biggest badminton tournament, the Yonex Sunrise Asian Badminton Championships 2010. The capital city, who play hosts to the premiere Asian tournament, will see top Asian shuttler’s fighting it out for the top positions from the 12th -18th April, 2010 at the state of the art Siri Fort stadium. The championship which has a prize money of $1,50,000 is also the highest prize money ever offered in the premier tournament.
The championship shall see a participation of over 330 players from over 20 Asian countries. China, India, Indonesia and Malaysia shall showcase a large contingent fighting it to the top positions in the weeklong tournament. World Champion and Olympic Gold Medalist China’s Lin Dan and his closest opponent Taufiq Hidayat will also been see playing at this premier event.The Indian contingent shall include top players like Chetan Anand, Anup Sridhar, Arvind Bhatt, P. Kashyap and Guru Sai Dutt in the men’s individual events. The women’s individual events shall see Indian badminton sensation and World number 5 Saina Nehwal leading the women’s contingent. Defending World champion Lu Lan, along with Indonesian Christina Yulianti and Zhou Mi from Hong Kong also have confirmed their participation.“We are proud to host the Asian Badminton Championships this year. We are all gearing up to experience India’s biggest ever sports events, the Commonwealth games 2010 Delhi come October, and this is the best occasion for us to display our expertise over handling International mega tournaments. In the last five years India has seen tremendous progress in the sport of Badminton and we have been able to host elite tournaments like the World Badminton Championships last year and the Badminton Asia Championship to be played next month onwards in Delhi. We hope to give all our supporters and the people of Delhi an experience that they would cherish for their lifetime,” said Mr. VK Verma, President, Badminton Association of India.He further added, “we also have bookmyshow as the ticketing partners to the event. The tickets for the tournament shall be available online from the 29th of March 2010.”The Yonex Sunrise Badminton Asia Championships 2010 visits India the fourth time this year, Delhi hosting the tournament for the first time ever. Earlier the tournament has been played at Hyderabad in 2005 & 1976 and in Kolkata in 1983.The championship that is also being treated, as a test event en-route to India’s biggest sporting event – XIX Commonwealth Games 2010 Delhi, will also test the Organising Committee’s preparedness to manage the smooth flow of international sporting events. A series of other test events in the recent past already have been conducted and a few more are scheduled in the days to come in all the various sports that shall be played during the Commonwealth Games 2010 Delhi during October this year.
