Badminton: NSBA Open Tournament begins on Monday

The Nationalised Services Badminton Association (NSBA) will have the honour of becoming the first affiliation of Sri Lanka Badminton (SLB) to conduct its Open Tournament on 10 playing courts, as competitions are held internationally. 

This was revealed by Parakrama Basnayake, the Vice President of SLB at the launch of the NSBA Open Badminton Tournament, which will begin on Monday (14)  at the Sugathadasa Indoor Stadium in Colombo. 

The annual Level 1 Ranking Tournament, which will feature over 1200 shuttlers from age categories ranging from 10 to 60+, will continue until Friday, and the ultimate winner is set to walk away with a grand cash prize of Rs. 500,000. 

Events will be conducted under two main categories -- Open and Schools. 

Matches in the Open Category will be held under Men’s and Women’s Singles and Doubles, Over-35 Men’s Singles, Over-40 Men’s and Women’s Veterans Singles and Doubles, Over-50 Masters Singles and Doubles and Over-60 Masters Singles and Doubles. 

In the Schools Category, Singles and Doubles matches will be conducted for boys and girls in the Under-11, 13, 15, 17 and 19 age categories. 

The qualification rounds will start the proceedings of the tournament on the first day, followed by the matches in the main draw. 

Competition in the main draw will be held until October 16. 

On October 17, the quarter-finals and the semi-finals will take place. 

All finals are scheduled to be held on the final day of the competition. 

"NSBA is a very important affiliation within the SLB. They conduct important tournaments during the year. This being the Open event, they have taken every step along with our SLB Tournament Committee to hold this tournament in a grand scale. This kind of tournaments play a major role in improving the standards of the players and the overall development of the sport," SLB President Rohan de Silva stated. 

The SLB, who had officially sanctioned the NSBA Open Tournament with highest regards, had already conducted the North Central Open, Mercantile and SSC Open tournaments during the past three months, since the election of the new office bearers. 

The NSBA Open Tournament, with more than 1200 players taking part, is treated as one of the biggest badminton events in the country by SLB. 

Sanjeewa Wijesekara will function as the Chief Referee of the tournament with Samantha Nawaratne as his deputy. The tournament is sponsored by Sri Lanka Telecom.