National junior badminton tournament begins today

Emily Ramdhani
Emily Ramdhani

The national junior badminton tournament will serve off today from 17.00 hours to 20.00 hours at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall, Homestretch Avenue.

The tournament, organized by the Guyana Badminton Association, will be played over three consecutive days with the last day running from 10.00 hours to 19.00 hours.

Among the categories being contested are the boys’ singles, girls’ singles, boys’ doubles and girls’ doubles games in the Under 11, U-13, U-15, U-17, U-19 categories.

 According to the GBA, children participating will come from Berbice Multilateral High School, Queen’s College, Marian Academy, St. Rose’s High School, Esa Academy, Georgetown International Academy and the Ministry of Culture Youth and Sports Nursery Badminton Academy. 

The competition will provide a special opportunity for those doing well as it gives them a pathway to representing Guyana at the Inter-Guiana Games which will be held between November 25 to 27.

According to the association’s Emily Ramdhani, national player Matthew Beharry is out of the competition due to injury while the girls will see Mishka Beharry defending her title in the three female singles category.

 Ramdhani noted, “It looks like we are in for some competitive matches across all the categories. We have some players from Berbice who are eager to medal. The players coming out of the academy have been training and are ready to compete against the more seasoned junior players.”

Over 50 players are expected to be on show including the likes of Jonathan Debidin, Jonathan Robinson, Avinash and Gianna Ramnarine, Manav Sharma, Raah Russell, Navaeh Eastman, Joel Rambiriche, John Thomas, Jedidiah Uqagboe and Karen Abrams.