Reigning National badminton champion of India, Arvind Bhat is the lone Indian survivor left at the ongoing Yonex Australia Open-2011 Grand Prix Gold badminton tournament being held at Melbourne in Australia.
As expected, Arvind has progressed to round 3 of the tournament where he is now up against a very formidable opponent, Boonsak Ponsana of Thailand who is currently ranked No.6 in the world badminton rankings, as opposed to Arvind Bhat is currently ranked No.45 in these rankings.
However Boonsak is not unbeatable. P Kashyap of India had defeated Boonsak 21-9, 21-19 at the Denmark Super Series last year, and Anand Pawar had come very close to breaking the jinx against him at the Malaysia Open Super Series badminton tournament held earlier this year in Jan-2011 when he had gone down fighting 17-21, 21-23 in a close match.
Boonsak has defeated Arvind Bhat twice before but their last match at the Hong Kong Open Super Series in 2008 was a very close one where the score was 28-2620-22 21-14. So Arvind does have an outside fighting chance, even though on paper Boonsak is the firm favorite to win.
Results so far for Arvind:
1st round: Arvind Bhat bt. Nicholas Jinadasa (USA) 21-19, 21-15.
2nd round: Arvind Bhat bt. Kavey Mehrabi (Iran) 21-14, 21-16.
Coming up next: Arvind Bhat v/s world no.6 Boonsak Ponsana (Thailand)
All the other Indians except Arvind Bhat, have already crashed out of the Australian Open Grand Prix Gold-2011 tourney.
As expected, Arvind has progressed to round 3 of the tournament where he is now up against a very formidable opponent, Boonsak Ponsana of Thailand who is currently ranked No.6 in the world badminton rankings, as opposed to Arvind Bhat is currently ranked No.45 in these rankings.
However Boonsak is not unbeatable. P Kashyap of India had defeated Boonsak 21-9, 21-19 at the Denmark Super Series last year, and Anand Pawar had come very close to breaking the jinx against him at the Malaysia Open Super Series badminton tournament held earlier this year in Jan-2011 when he had gone down fighting 17-21, 21-23 in a close match.
Boonsak has defeated Arvind Bhat twice before but their last match at the Hong Kong Open Super Series in 2008 was a very close one where the score was 28-26
Results so far for Arvind:
1st round: Arvind Bhat bt. Nicholas Jinadasa (USA) 21-19, 21-15.
2nd round: Arvind Bhat bt. Kavey Mehrabi (Iran) 21-14, 21-16.
Coming up next: Arvind Bhat v/s world no.6 Boonsak Ponsana (Thailand)
All the other Indians except Arvind Bhat, have already crashed out of the Australian Open Grand Prix Gold-2011 tourney.
- Eshan Naqvi did well to win 3 matches on the trot in the qualifying rounds to reach the main draw of the tournament, where he eventually lost to 15th seed Yan Kit Chan of Hong Kong. Yan Kit Chan bt. Eeshan 21-7, 21-8 in a one-sided match.
- Ajit Wijettilak could not win all his matches to progress from the qualifying rounds to the main draw.
- Aditya Elango lost in the first round of the main draw against a strong opponent, the 9th seed Tommy Sugiarto of Indonesia. Tommy bt. Aditya 21-12, 21-5.
- RMV Guru Sai Dutt, who had performed reasonably well at the New Zealand Open last week, also could not continue in the same vein at Australia as he suffered a shocking loss in the first round against Yi Lu of China. Yi Lu defeated Guru Sai Dutt 21-11, 21-18.
- In the men's doubles section, the pair of Akshay Dewalkar/Arun Vishnu were up against top seeds and world no.10 pair of Hirokatsu Hashimoto/Noriyasu Hirata of Japan who defeated them with ease 21-9, 21-10.
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