The Cen­tral Bad­minton Acad­e­my and Club (CBAC) will host its third an­nu­al Ju­nior Open Cham­pi­onships, at the Cen­tral Re­gion­al In­door Sport Are­na (CRISA), Ch­agua­nas for three days, to­day, to­mor­row and No­vem­ber 23, from 8 am - 6 pm, on each day.

A to­tal of 130 en­trees for ju­niors have been sub­mit­ted from 10 schools and six clubs for the 21 ti­tles at stake. It is set to be the sin­gle largest ju­nior bad­minton tour­na­ment this year. A num­ber of na­tion­al cham­pi­ons have been en­tered to com­pete, amongst them CBAC's Leon Cassie who is the na­tion­al triple crown Un­der-13 cham­pi­on, Caribbean cham­pi­on and nom­i­nee for the First Cit­i­zens Sport Foun­da­tion Youth Sport Awards 2013 for bad­minton.

Al­so lead­ing the way for the host club, CBAC, is na­tion­al cham­pi­ons Stephon Butch­er, sib­lings Son­ja and Sand­hya Cassie, Erin Haynes, Avidesh Mara­jh, Ni­ral Ram­lal, Aleem Ali and Anan­da Ram­s­ingh. Na­tion­al play­ers Vikash Mara­jh, Naim Mo­hammed and Shani­ka Ram­lochan will al­so com­pete for CBAC.

Na­tion­al cham­pi­ons Ral­it­sa Wong, Ja­da Re­nales, Will Lee, Adri­an Nichol­son, Ja­son Ram­jass and Kristi Reno Singh will al­so vie for hon­ors in the U-15, U-17, U-19 and U-21 cat­e­gories. The CBAC Ju­nior Open is the on­ly lo­cal com­pe­ti­tion that in­cludes an U-21 cat­e­go­ry, and CBAC pres­i­dent and coach, Sab­ri­na Cassie, a renowned for­mer na­tion­al play­er and Caribbean cham­pi­on said the in­ten­tion with the in­clu­sions is to help play­ers ad­just to the tran­si­tion from ju­nior to se­nior lev­el of com­pe­ti­tion.

Cassie (Sab­ri­na) said she is al­so pleased that in the five years of the club's ex­is­tence, CBAC has been able to con­tin­ue its con­tri­bu­tion to the de­vel­op­ment of youth in the sport.

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