Rias Uddin failed to advance to the fourth round of the Yonex-Sunrise Bangladesh Open International Badminton Challenge on Wednesday, falling to number two seed Shubhankar Dey of India in the men’s singles event. Rias was the only Bangladeshi shuttler left in the men’s singles draw after his straight-sets win over Malaysian opponent Jean Yea Tin in the second round on Tuesday.
In the women’s singles event, Shapla Aktar of Bangladesh was defeated by Indian Arathi Sara Sunil 21-11, 21-16 in the second round, having received a bye in the first round.
In the men’s doubles events, Moazzem Hossain and Minhaz Mohammad lost to Chinese Taipei’s Liang Jui Wei and Liao Kuan Hao, while the parings of Chand Lal and Saif Uddin, Anamul Haque and Ahsan Habib and Jamil Ahmed and Javed Mostafa all lost to the Indian teams in second round action.
The mixed doubles event, started on Wednesday and saw the team of Chand Lal and Rehana Parvin fall to Upuli Samanthika Weerasinghe and Thilan Sepalage Perera of Sri Lanka, while Jamil Ahmed and Brishty Khatun pair lost to Indian pair Sanskriti Chhabra and Abhishek Ahlawat in their first round match.
The team of Javed Mostafa and Shapla Aktar and the team of Ahsan Habib and Nabila Aktar got walkovers from their opponents from Nepal.
Rias, the fourth-ranked shuttler in Bangladesh, admitted that he was not fully prepared to face the second seed before the tournament began.
‘I had a plan to contest against Shubhankar, but he put me behind physically and tactically,’ said Rias.
‘We didn’t prepare well enough to compete in this kind of competition. One month’s preparation was not enough to beat the strongest opponents, who are preparing themselves all through the year.’
Shubhankar also said that Rias’ fitness level was not up to the mark.
‘I think [Rias] was not properly prepared for the tournament, so it was easy for me to beat him,’ he said after the match.
‘Everybody thinks that Indians are developing well in badminton, but the actual scenario is different.
We have a huge problem in running the game because to compete in the international tournaments regularly you have to need more money.’
‘We [the players] are also facing the financial problem. To develop myself, I have to play more than 10 international tournaments per year, but due to the crisis we played six or seven tournaments with our own money,’ added Shubhankar.
-With New Age input