BAI-REC to fund 28 shuttlers for international tournaments

NEW DELHI: The Badminton Association of India (BAI), with support from Rural Electrification Corportation (REC), will fund the country's 28 talented shuttlers for top-level international badminton tournaments in order to help them improve rankings and also provide much-needed foreign exposure.

The players, ranked between 26 and 75 in the BWF world rankings along with top performers from the recent Senior National Championships, who are not part of the national camp but have already shown signs of brilliance, like reigning Abu Dhabi Masters champion Unnati Hooda and Tanvi Sharma, the silver medallist at the 2023 Badminton Asia U-17 Junior Championships, are among the 28 players across singles and doubles category who have been chosen based on their performances across multiple tournaments. These players will be fully funded for the tournaments.

"Badminton Association of India is committed to ensure promising talents get much-needed support to showcase their potential as the national campers even if they are not part of the national camp. Our partnership with REC will not only help us broad base these opportunities and give shuttlers more and more opportunities to participate in multiple international challenger events as well as Super 300s and thereby better their rankings as well as gain experience of playing against foreign players. This initiative aligns with our goals to create strong opportunities for more players to show their abilities as well as compete and benefit from the national badminton structure," BAI Secretary Sanjay Mishra said, according to a release.

This opportunity has also been extended to the current senior nationals singles champions Chirag Sen and Anmol Kharb as well as runners-up Tharun Mannepalli and 15-year-old Tanvi Sharma -- one of the youngest finalists in the history. The doubles national champions Suraj Goala and Pruthvi Roy, and Priya Konjengbam and Shruti Mishra have also been included.

The selected players have been given an option to choose three tournaments, including two Super 300 events -- the Orleans Masters and Swiss Open -- from a total of eight tournaments, for which BAI will extend complete financial support to each of the shuttlers

Full list of players:

Men's singles:

1. Sathish Kumar Karunakaran (World Rank 51)

2. S Sankar Muthusamy Subramanian (WR 71)

3. Sameer Verma (WR 74)

4. Chirag Sen (Senior Nationals champion)

5. Tharun Mannepalli (Senior Nationals runner-up)

Women's Singles:

1.Aakarshi Kashyap (WR 40)

2.Malvika Bansod (WR 52)

3.Unnati Hooda (WR 56)

4.Tanya Hemanth (WR 69)

5.Tasnim Mir (WR 73)

6.Imad Farooqui Samiya (WR 74)

7.Anmol Kharb (Senior National Champion)

8.Tanvi Sharma (Senior National runner-up)

Men's Doubles:

1. Hariharan Amsakarunan/Ruban Kumar Rethinasabapathi (WR 70)

2. P.S Ravikrishna/Sankar Prasad Udayakunar (WR 75)

3. Suraj Goala/Pruthvi Krishnamurthy Roy (Senior Nationals champions)

Women's Doubles:

1. Ashwini Bhat K/Shikha Gautam (WR 49)

2.Rutaparna Panda/Swetaparna Panda (WR 52)

3.Simran Singh/Ritika Thaker (WR 63)

4.Priya Konjengbam/Shruti Mishra (Senior National champions)

Mixed Doubles:

1.Sathish Kumar Karunakaran/Aadya Variyath (WR 64).