Philippines to host Badminton Open next year

The Philippines is expected to host a Badminton Open next year, which will provide its athletes more international exposure to gain world ranking points, a local newspaper reported Wednesday.

Philippine (http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/data/philippine.html)Badminton Association vice president Edgar Aglipay told the Philippine Star that the International Badminton Federation (IBF) will sanction the Philippine Open next year.

Aglipay said that the Philippine Open will be scheduled between the Korea Open in March and the Chinese Masters in April.

The promising athletes including mixed doubles pair of Kennie and Kennevic Asuncion will have more international exposure in the Open, he said during Monday's sendoff of the 16-man delegation to 2005 Chinese-Taipei Satellite Badminton Championships.

"This is good news not only for Kennie and Kennevic but also for everyone who wants to get into the world rankings," he said.

The brother-sister tandem has recently lifted their world rank to No. 22 from No. 24, due to their performance in the 2005 IBF World Championships in Aneheim, California.

Source: Xinhua

I can confirm this. I'm not sure about weather it is a 2 star event or not. I don't have the full details yet.

Hoping that will be at least a 2-star event or higher :)

It seems to be a 4* event.

Here's something really interesting. It's scheduled for the beginning of March and there no other high ranking tournaments in SE Asia around that time. Probably we won't see many Europeans taking a 16 hour flight for one tournament. Maybe not so many from China either. I suspect China may use it as experience for their younger players. I expect to see M'sia, HK, Indonesia, S'pore field their players. Aussies might have a presence as well to get a warm up tournament in preparation for the Commonwealth games.

Good news! Glad to see badminton promotion growing back home. Do you have more information, such as the dates and where it will be held?

p.s. if you are familiar with the SEA games, how are the Asuncions faring for the Philippines?

Good news! Glad to see badminton promotion growing back home. Do you have more information, such as the dates and where it will be held?

p.s. if you are familiar with the SEA games, how are the Asuncions faring for the Philippines?

Locally the Asuncions dominate the badminton arena in MixEd D, Mens singles and women's singles. However as wel all know , both of them specialises in MixD and playing internationally. I believe that they will fare will against the big guns in the SeaGames with local crowd behind them.