WAL­TER AL­IBEY

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

wal­ter.al­ibey@guardian.co.tt

Cheque­da De Boulet is eye­ing a re­turn to the Cos­ta Ri­can In­ter­na­tion­al Bad­minton Tour­na­ment in Sep­tem­ber.

Her last stint there last year end­ed in a quar­ter­fi­nal fin­ish for her in the women's sin­gles and a bronze medal in the women's dou­bles, when she joined forces with Guyana's Priyan­ka Ramd­hanie. But not much has changed for her to date, and she is not ex­pect­ing much ei­ther.

At­tempt­ing to be the first T&T fe­male bad­minton play­er to earn an Olympic berth, De Boulet has strug­gled with fi­nances to go to in­ter­na­tion­al tour­na­ments to pre­pare, and to her hav­ing to play and coach her­self dur­ing match­es.

She trav­els alone at 24 years, seek­ing out tour­na­ments that would help boost her rank­ings. Guardian Me­dia Sports has been told that the coun­try's top bad­minton play­er will have to climb to a po­si­tion of at least 150th in the world to earn an Olympic berth.

"Not much has changed for me, so I'm not re­al­ly fo­cused on the Olympics. I haven't been able to go to any train­ing camp abroad, much less in­ter­na­tion­al tour­na­ments. If there is a change, then I can shift my fo­cus, but for now, I'm tak­ing it one step at a time with the tour­na­ments and the match­es," De Boulet said yes­ter­day.

She has dom­i­nat­ed women's bad­minton, win­ning al­most every tour­na­ment lo­cal­ly she took part in. She told Guardian Me­dia Sports her next chal­lenge lo­cal­ly will be the Top 10 Bad­minton Tour­na­ment that will take place from Ju­ly 2-5 at the Na­tion­al Rac­quet Cen­tre in Tacarigua.

De Boulet will play out of Group A, which al­so fea­tures Ten­niya To­bias, Zyah Hold­er, Sid­ney Mor­ris and Kara Ash­ley Robert­son. The top two play­ers from the group will ad­vance. Group B of the play-off will con­sist of Ama­ra Urquhart, Ja­ni­ah Boodoos­ingh, Cheyenne Bho­la, Is­abelle Waller and Aliyah Urquhart.

The 24-year-old said the tour­na­ment will be a good form of prac­tice for play­ers as they will get the op­por­tu­ni­ty of high-lev­el ac­tion against the top play­ers in the coun­try. "I ex­pect every play­er to do their best. For me, I al­ways go in­to tour­na­ments feel­ing con­fi­dent of win­ning, but at the same time, not tak­ing any play­er for grant­ed. I just want to win when I go on the court," De Boulet said.

At the Cos­ta Ri­can In­ter­na­tion­al, De Boulet in­tends to medal at both the sin­gles and the dou­bles, though ex­pect­ing it to be a tough test.