HYDERABAD, February 2: Maharashtra and Railways claimed the top billing in the team events while defending champion P Gopichand of Andhra Pradesh and last year's runner-up Aparna Popat of Karnataka were seeded top in the individual events of the 53rd edition of Inter-state Inter-zonal Championship and 62nd Bristol Senior National Badminton championship for men and women respectively to be held at Indoor Stadium here from tomorrow.This year's tournament would feature the nation's best shuttlers including Gopichand, National Champion and skipper of Indian team for Thomas Cup scheduled to be held in Manila 1998 P Gopichand, junior national champion Sachin Ratti (Railways), Abhin Shyam Gupta (A-I), Deepankar Bhattacharjee Rajeev Bagga, George Thomas, U Vinod Kumar and Bhushan Akut (Mah) are the names to watch.
In ladies section, reigning National champion Manjusha Kanwar of Air-india, silver medalist in World Junior Championships and top seed Aparna Popat of Karnataka, Madhumita Bisht of Railways, NeelimaChoudhary of Air-India and Olympian PVV Lakshmi of Andhra Pradesh will be the stars vying for top honours.
Seedings
Mens Singles: 1 P Gopichand (AP); 2 Abhin Shyam Gupta (Rly); 3 Nikhil Kanetkar (Air-India); 4 Sachin Ratti (Rly); 5 Srikant Bakshi (Rly).
Doubles: 1 Vijaydeep Singh-Jassel P Ismail (Bai); 2 U Vinod Kumar- Rajeev Bagga (Bai); 3 George Thomas-Marcos Bristo (Ker); 4 Anirudh Roy-Roy Mathews (Bai); 5 Mangrish Palekar-Harish Chander (Rly).
Ladies singles: 1 Aparna Popat (Kar); 2 Manjusha Kanwar (Del); 3 K Neelima Choudhary (A-I); 4 PVV Lakshmi (AP); 5 Pooja Parekh (Rly).
Doubles: 1 Madhumita Bist-Sindhu Gulati (Rly); 2 Manjusha Kanwar- Archana Deodar (Bai); 3 PVV Lakshmi-PV Sharada Devi (AP); 4 Firoza Batliwala-Nazneen karmi (bai); 5 Meenakshi-Madhavi Kashikar (Rly).
Mixed doubles: 1 Madhumitha Bhist-Vinod Kumar (Rly); 2 BR Meenakshi-Harish Chandra (Rly); 3 Madhavi Kashikar-Deepak Amarnath (Ker); 4 Nirmala Kotnis-Mayur Ghatnekar (A-I).
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
