For­mer top play­er Anil Seep­aul has ex­pressed his sat­is­fac­tion with the per­for­mances of T&T play­ers who com­pet­ed in the re­cent 

Cos­ta Ri­ca Fu­ture Se­ries Ju­nior and Se­nior Bad­minton Tour­na­ments at the BN Are­na, Atil­lo, San Jose, Cos­ta Ri­ca 

In the ju­niors, lo­cal play­er Ethan Ram­cha­ran, a triple-crown win­ner at last month’s Ju­nior Caribbean Re­gion­al Bad­minton Con­fed­er­a­tion (CARE­BA­CO) Cham­pi­onship, won the triple crown.

In the Boys Un­der-17 Sin­gles de­cider, 14-year-old Ram­cha­ran beat Gon­za­lo Jose Bar­rantes Re­tana 21-13, 21-13. He then paired with Vishal Ram­sub­hag to lift the Boys Un­der-19 Dou­bles ti­tle af­ter a tense 20-22, 21-10, 21-4 tri­umph over Melvin Leonar­do Calzadil­la Castil­lo and Hen­ry Alexan­der Moli­na Ay­ala.

In the Un­der-17 Mixed Dou­bles, Ram­cha­ran teamed up with an­oth­er T&T play­er, Is­abelle Waller, for a 21-12, 21-8 vic­to­ry over Jose Fabri­cio Cam­bronero Ro­jas and Eva Cami­la Di­narte Ro­jas, and in the Un­der-19 Boys Sin­gles, he se­cured a bronze medal.

In the Girls Un­der-17 Dou­bles fi­nal, T&T’s Samiya Karim and Is­abelle Waller beat Cos­ta Ri­cans Xi­ao Hui Liang Cen and Maria Lau­ra Lopez Mesen. 21-5, 21-8.

How­ev­er, in the Un­der-15 Girls Sin­gles fi­nal, Karim went un­der to Alexa Pamela Chavar­ria Cas­tro. 12-21, 14-21, while in the mixed dou­bles, Karim and Cos­ta Ri­can Dan­ny San­ti­a­go Amador Ar­guedas were beat­en by Hen­ry Alexan­der Moli­na Ay­ala and Marcela Es­mer­al­do Guarda­do Al­varen­ga. 9-21, 11-21, to end with a 0-2 record in the three-team round-robin se­ries and got bronze, while Karim al­so got bronze in the girls dou­bles with Bar­ba­di­an Sa­hara Brath­waite. 

Among the se­niors, top lo­cal women’s play­er Cheque­da De Boulet com­pet­ed in both the sin­gles and dou­bles com­pe­ti­tion, team­ing up with Guyana’s Priyan­na Ramd­hani in the lat­ter against top-qual­i­ty op­po­si­tion from Brazil, Cana­da, Pe­ru, Italy, Guatemala, El Sal­vador, Guyana, Por­tu­gal, Paraguay, Mo­roc­co, Ger­many, Chi­nese Taipei, Bar­ba­dos, and the host coun­try.

In the sin­gles, De Boulet, com­pet­ing in her sec­ond in­ter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tion since her Achilles in­jury, reached the quar­ter­fi­nals be­fore she was de­feat­ed by Brazil’s Maria Ju­lia Da Cruz Nasci­men­to 9-21, 14-21, while in the dou­bles, she part­nered Ramd­hani for a dou­bles af­ter they were beat­en by sec­ond seed­ed Fer­nan­da Mu­nar and Rafaela Mu­nar of Pe­ru 10-21, 11-21 in their semi­fi­nal. 

Re­flect­ing on the per­for­mances of the play­ers, Seep­aul, the coach of the team, said, ‘The T&T play­ers ex­ceed­ed our ex­pec­ta­tions, with im­pres­sive per­for­mances across mul­ti­ple cat­e­gories. 

“The play­ers, es­pe­cial­ly Ram­cha­ran (Ethan), demon­strat­ed ex­cep­tion­al tal­ent and are con­sid­ered the fu­ture of bad­minton in this coun­try.

“Their suc­cess­es in Cos­ta Ri­ca are a tes­ta­ment to the pro­gres­sive de­vel­op­ment of the sport in the coun­try, and the team aims to com­pete against the best and wants to rank among the top coun­tries in the Pan Amer­i­can re­gion.

Chan­dri­ka Ram­sub­hag, Pres­i­dent of the T&T Bad­minton As­so­ci­a­tion and the fa­ther of Vishal Ram­sub­hag, said he too was de­light­ed with the per­for­mances of the play­ers and saw it as all part of the de­vel­op­ment of the lo­cal play­ers.

Ram­sub­hag sees it as good prepa­ra­tions for World Ju­niors. 

The se­nior Ram­sub­hag said, “Cos­ta Ri­ca was a good de­vel­op­ment tour­na­ment for our ju­nior play­ers. We did well cap­tur­ing four gold medals, and it shows that we are on the right track, and it was al­so bode well for the play­ers who are head­ing to Chi­na to com­pete at the YONEX BWF World Ju­nior Cham­pi­onships 2024, which will take place in Nan­chang, Chi­na, next month. 

For Chi­na, the T&TBA has named a team in­clu­sive of Ram­sub­hag (V), Jace Smith, Ama­ra Urquhart, San­na Guria, and Samiya Karim, while the se­nior Ram­sub­hag is the team man­ag­er, with Seep­aul serv­ing as coach.

The Mixed Team Cham­pi­onships (Suhan­d­i­na­ta Cup) will be con­test­ed from Sep­tem­ber 30 to Oc­to­ber 5, while the In­di­vid­ual Cham­pi­onships (Eye-Lev­el Cups) run from Oc­to­ber 7 to 13.

In Au­gust, the quin­tet of Vishal Ram­sub­hag (Boys Un­der-19), Ama­ra Urquhart (Girls Un­der-19), T’Shelle Barnes (Girls Un­der-17), Ethan Ram­cha­ran (Boys Un­der-17), and Asia Lee Waller (Girls Un­der-13) all com­plet­ed tre­ble crown per­for­mances at the Ju­nior CARE­BA­CO Cham­pi­onship, and both Seep­aul and Ram­sub­hag (C) were pleased with the re­turns as it served the play­ers good prepa­ra­tion for Chi­na as well.

Ram­sub­hag (V) and Smith have been en­tered in the Men’s Un­der-19 Sin­gles, while Urquhart, Karim, and Guria will con­test the Women’s Un­der-19 Sin­gles.

The pairs of Ram­sub­hag (V) and Guria and Smith and Urquhart will com­pete in the mixed dou­bles, while Ram­sub­hag and Smith will com­bine for the men’s un­der-19 dou­bles and Urquhart and Guria in the women’s un­der-19 dou­bles. 

About the team’s readi­ness, the old­er Ram­sub­hag said, ‘We have a team reg­is­tered of two boys and three girls to go, but we are still await­ing con­fir­ma­tion of the fund­ing.

He said, “We have sub­mit­ted our pro­pos­al to the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Sports and Cul­tur­al Fund, and up to yes­ter­day we sub­mit­ted some ex­tra doc­u­men­ta­tion that was re­quired from us, and right now we are just await­ing ap­proval from them, so we are very hope­ful things will pan out in our favour. So far, we have bought tick­ets for some of the play­ers with mon­ey out of our own pock­ets, but there are some who can­not af­ford it and are await­ing the funds from the gov­ern­ment to do so, not­ed the se­nior Ram­sub­hag.

The T&TBA boss not­ed there were stiff penal­ties and fines for teams fail­ing to show at the event in Chi­na.