JEDDAH: The Jeddah Badminton Club & Evenlode Badminton Club of Dammam recognized by the Saudi Badminton Committee are all set to stage one of the region’s biggest events.

The tournament dubbed Jeddah Badminton Open Challenge 2016 was launched at Ascott Hotel attended by the main representatives of tournament committee & sponsors.

The chairman of Jeddah Badminton Club, Sahadh Mohammed, and president of Evenlode Badminton Club, Tony Mathew, signed the agreement to conduct the two-day tournament March 11 to 12 at Olympia Badminton Complex in the premises of Dr. Soliman Fakeeh Hospital in Jeddah.

This will be the first time an event of this magnitude is taking place in Jeddah with invited overseas players seeing action. The objective in conducting this tournament is to promote badminton and build camaraderie among all the badminton communities in the region. This will also help to scout young talents and build them to grow as an elite player.

There will be players participating from all over the regions of Jeddah, Riyadh, Dammam , Assir, Abha, Jizan, Jubail with more than 1,000 players expected to take part. Players of various nationalities from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Syria, India, Pakistan, Philippines, Malaysia, China, Singapore are joining the competition. The categories featured are Men’s Singles, Men’s Doubles, Veteran (Above 45yrs), Juniors & Sub-juniors. In addition to trophies the winners and runners up will be awarded with attractive cash prize.

Present at the event launch were members of the tournament committee led by Eapen Mathews (Tournament Chairman), Tony Mathew (Tournament Director), Alayan Al Harbi (Representative from Saudi Badminton Committee), Rico Gonzales (Technical Director), Rajeev Matheyil (Tournament Treasurer) & Ganesh Iyer (Tournament Coordinator). The main chief guests were K T A Muneer, President of Overseas Indian Cultural Congress (OICC) Western Region Committee, Ali Amouily Representative from Saudi Total Petroleum Company and Ashraf Kunnath, representative from Jotun Paint Company.

The brand ambassador of the event will be Jaffer Ebrahim, of Bahrain, who is the current development project manager of Middle East for World Badminton Federation (BWF). He is also a world ranking badminton player and Olympic player of Bahrain. There will be also participation from world ranking players from India, Syria, Jordan, Qatar for this two-day event. The tournament will also be supported by the Jeddah Badminton Association, ACE Arabia and Overseas Indian Cultural Congress (OICC) western regional Committee, Jeddah.

For more information, interested players are requested to contact Rajeev Matheyil on 0549126568/0553048702 and E-mail:[email protected].