Yonex Sunrise India Open 2019

By Jhankrit Ahuja

Yonex Sunrise Open draws Indian support

The Yonex- Sunrise India Open Championship 2019 saw the eighth edition of the series of tournaments under the 2019 BWF World Tour. The tournament took place in K.D Jadhav Indoor Hall in the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium, New Delhi, India. This year’s edition started on March 26 2019 and was concluded on 31 March 2019 having a total purse of $350,000. Beginning in 2008, this tournament is carried out by Badminton Association of India. The list of champions in different categories is given below.

    Men’s Singles:                                              Viktor Axelsen (Danish)

    Women’s Singles:                                        Ratchanok Intanon (Thai)

    Men’s Doubles:                                            Lee Yang (Chinese)

                                                                            Wang Chi-lin (Chinese)

    Women’s Doubles:                                     Greysia Polii (Indonasian)

                                                                            Apriyani Rahayu (Indonasian)

    Mixed Doubles:                                           Wang Yilu (Chinese)

                                                                            Huang Dongping (Chinese)

The first two days of the tournament saw almost negligible audience and the sponsors started losing hopes. Gradually, after the round of 16, the participation of the audience grew exponentially. Seats began to fill up with the quarterfinals on 29 March 2019. It was just a matter of time that the seats in the general and VIP section filled up to an extent that the crowd had to find seats on stairs, bars and what not. 

The ambience of the Indira Gandhi Indoor stadium did not disappoint. Security, health facilities, and other important facilities were up to the mark. Other than that, the lighting for the courts were pretty decent. Favorable environment was maintained throughout for best performance of the athletes.  Time management was taken care of accurately. All the matches were conducted as per schedule with minimum to no delay at all. Quality of the court and other necessary equipment was good. Immediate assistance to handle any grievances of the players was present. Hospitality was decent as well. 

Coming to the performances of various known athletes, Viktor Axelsen aka The Dane, did not disappoint and played upto the mark as always. The men’s singles final was conducted between Axelsen and the Indian gladiator Srikanth Kidambi. The first match in the set was easily bagged by Axelsen with a score of 21-7. Although the Indian champ gave a tough challenge in the second game, but the Dane was still too good as he managed to win with a score of 22-20. Axelsen pulled three game points fast that Srikanth was well surprised and till the time he could gain back his performance, it was already too late for the Indian champ.

In the women’s singles championship, Ratchanok Intanon from Thailand beats He Bingjiao of China with two consecutive wins of 21-15 and 21-14 respectively. The Indian audience was well aware of Intanon’s performance and cheered her up throughout the set. Intanon won Indian support by greeting everyone by joining hands and bowing down to perform the Namaste.

Overall, the tournament was a huge success as players quoted on how they would love to come back again and play next year in the next edition of Yonex- Sunrise India Open Championship.