Dubai: Some of the best badminton players from the UAE will be in action over the next six weeks as they tussle for honours at the annual Shuttle Time Dubai Club Championships at the Dubai Sports World.
Organised by the UAE Table Tennis and Badminton Federation, the annual competition starting from today (Friday) will feature nine teams each in the Level B and Level C tournaments.
The nine teams from each category will be divided into three groups of three teams apiece.
The competition that will follow the Badminton World Federation’s (BWF) Laws of Badminton and General Competition Regulations could have been even stronger had Prime Star Badminton got involved with the event. As per the format, all encounters will be played as best of five games consisting of eleven points each.
Starting today the preliminary round matches will be held over the next three Fridays with the semi-finals scheduled for August 24 and the finals on August 31. Jaffer Ebrahim is the tournament director, while Tino Thomas is the tournament referee with Rafeek Rahim and Sathyanarayan Kalappurckal as his deputies.
The open draw for the competition was scheduled to be held later on Thursday with defending champions Li Ning fancied to dominate once again. All encounters will consist of men’s singles and doubles, a women’s doubles, a men’s Masters doubles and a mixed doubles.
“We have been overawed with the huge response to this competition despite charging teams an entry fee,” Ebrahim told Gulf News.
“At the end of the preliminary rounds, the group leaders will move into the semi-finals and the fourth semi-finalist will be the fourth best team among the remaining six. There will be a second open draw once the four semi-finalists have been decided,” he added.
Ghazi Al Madani, chairman, UAE Badminton Committee will be the chief guest at the opening ceremony scheduled for 4pm today. The competition will be worked out every Friday from 4 to 10.30pm.
This year there will be no competition in Level A due to less entries, while last year, Li Ning had been the dominant team winning Level A ahead of Xtra Victor Badminton and taking the top two spots in Level B.