Padukone to acquire medal for promoting badminton

Ahmedabad: The Sports Journalists Federation of India (SJFI) has determined to confer its highest honor – the SJFI Medal – to badminton ace Prakash Padukone on Sunday. The medal, instituted closing 12 months and first provided to tennis legend Vijay Amritraj, is being offered in reputation of Padukone’s enormous contribution of placing India at the International badminton map and his masterful display lasting extra than a decade between 1971 and 1983.

Padukone received his first senior Indian national identity in 1971 at the age of sixteen and, after that, went directly to preserve it for the next nine years effectively. In the worldwide scene, the Bengaluru-born gained the 1978 Commonwealth Games gold medal. Two years later, the prestigious All-England identified him as No.1 inside the international badminton rankings. Padukone obtained the prestigious Arjuna Award in 1972 and the celebrated Padma Shri in 1982 via the Government of India. His elder daughter Deepika Padukone is India’s most admired actress in Hindi films.

The annual general assembly of the SJFI also decided to confer the SJFI Best Sportsperson of 2019 award at the same time on 21-time World Champion Pankaj Advani (cue recreation) and Bajrang Punia (wrestling) for the top-notch and constant display of their selected sports activities thru the last 12 months. Young and talented Saurabh Choudhary (shooting) became picked for the SJFI Emerging Talent of the Year award for 2019. Indian shuttlers will look to position their high-quality foot ahead after they begin their campaign on the Canada Open BWF Tour Super a hundred starting with the qualifiers in Calgary on Tuesday.

While pinnacle stars inclusive of P V Sindhu, Saina Nehwal, and Kidambi Srikanth will now not be in motion, the $ seventy-five 000 matches will see some of the Indian male shuttlers headlined through B Sai Praneeth and HS Prannoy. Praneeth, a 2017 Singapore Open champion, will look to lay his hands on a title after coming close at the Swiss Open Super 300 event in March this year. He had lost in the finals to Shi Yuqi of China. The 2d seeded Indian, who ultimately played at the Australian Open almost a month back, has were given a bye in the first spherical and could face the winner of USA’s Nicholas Robert Henson Waller and China’s Sun Fei Xiang to start his marketing campaign.

Prannoy has lost lots of time this year combating a gastroesophageal reflux ailment that affected his performance. And as a result, his ranking has fallen to international no 26. The 25-year-old Indian, a former top 10 player, also got a bye within the first spherical and will appear to turn matters around. Former Commonwealth Games champion Parupalli Kashyap has appeared in proper contact this season as nicely, mainly on the India Open, in which he reached the semi-final. The sixth seed could wish to continue with the excellent touch.