Good start for male, bad for female

Even though the country's two top male shuttlers crossed the first-round hurdle in the Yonex-Sunrise Bangladesh International Challenge, the top two female shuttlers were eliminated from the first round at Shaheed Tajuddin Ahmed Indoor Stadium yesterday.

Gourav Singha, the country's top-ranked shuttler, handed a 22-20, 21-15 defeat to Melvin Appiah of Mauritius in men's singles while Salman Khan, the national champion, posted a straight-forward 21-8, 21-6 victory over Mauritius's Tejraj Pultoo to move into the second round. 

Veteran shuttler Ahsan Habib Parash registered a 21-8, 21-8 win over Mohamed Raffah of Maldives while Abdul Khaleq beat Saheer Ramrakhan of Mauritius 21-14, 21-16. Ariful Islam Tuhin beat Maldives' Mohamed Aakif 21-5, 21-8.

Apart from these winners, Mangal Singha and Chand Lal got walkover while 10 other Bangladeshis were defeated in the first round.

In women's singles, there was frustration as country's top-ranked Elina Sultana suffered a 21-19, 21-13 defeat to Indian-born American Ruhi Raju while national champion Shapla Akter failed to produce any resistance against tournament's top-seed Thuy Linh Nguyen in a 21-2, 21-10 defeat.

However, there was an unexpected win for Rehana Parvin, who beat Jemimah Leung of Mauritius 21-18, 20-22, 21-18 while Brishti Khatun, Afrina Islam, Fatima Begum, Dulali Halder, Urmi Akter lost their respective first-round matches.   

Bangladesh's Malaysian coach Arvind Verma was, however, happy with the performance. “I am happy with whatever performance they put up with a short-period of preparation. I think it is a learning tournament for the players as I have seen some potentially good players like Sibghat Ullah and Gourav Singha, who have the ability to go far. I will try to push them as much as I can in the training,” said the coach, who joined the training camp on November 24.