The foreign participation will be at its bare minimum in the TATA Open India International Challenge 2014 badminton tournament that gets under way at the Cricket Club of India's courts here on Wednesday.
While the top two ranked Indian shuttlers in each of men's and women's singles will be missing from action, the five-day tournament will give an opportunity for the Indian shuttlers to showcase their talent and garner ranking points.
Prakash Padukone, the former world No.1 and founder of the Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy, said that the poor international response might have been because of the postponement of the Syed Modi International Badminton Championships that will be held in Lucknow from January 20-25, 2015.
Padukone, 59 and former All England champion, said here on Tuesday, "All these years, excluding last year, the two tournaments (Syed Modi and Tata Open) were back to back. We will talk to BAI AND BWF and see if Syed Modi tournament can come back or if we move to be in line with that so that the (foreign) participation will be better."
Padukone hoped that there will be better participation from overseas next year. "Next year being the Olympic qualifying year, the Olympic qualification starts on May 1, 2015. We will have very good participation. Players will participate in as many tournaments as possible to qualify for the Olympics. Participation fore next year will be very good," Padukone said.
For this edition, though, world No. 8 Kidambi Srikanth, 16-ranked Parupalli Kashyap in men's singles, and world No. 4 Saina Nehwal and No. 11 PV Sindhu will not be in action. This gives world No. 22 HS Prannoy, the Indonesian Masters 2014 champion in September, the pride of place in men's singles while No. 41 PC Thulasi is top seeded in women's singles.
The men's draw has four other players who figure in the top 50 world rankings. These include Sourabh Verma (No. 36), Sai Praneeth (No. 40), RMV Gurusaidutt (No. 44) and Anand Pawar (No. 45). Meanwhile, Padukone felt that today's shuttlers were playing too many tournaments to garner ranking points. "If I were to play today, I would have played a little differently. All these people need to manage their tournaments. I feel they play too many tournaments even if they are not fit, just to maintain their rankings.
"It is not necessary you have to be everywhere. You need to select tournaments, play in the good ones and win all of them or do well in all of them. The points you get by playing in 15 tournaments, you get them in 10 tournaments if you do well. Right now, there is inconsistency in shuttlers' results because they are not giving enough time (to rest and recover from injuries). They are not planning well," he said.
His advice to the players was: "Whatever tournament you play, try to play well to the potential. That will also avoid injuries and you will be fresh. I think there is overemphasis on ranking. I would tell the players to focus more on performance rather than on rankings. Whatever tournaments they play, if they do well, it will automatically reflect on the rankings."
The qualifying rounds of the seventh edition of this tournament will be held on Wednesday while the main draw begins on Thursday. The finals are scheduled on December 14.
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