India’s ace shuttler and Red Bull Athlete Ashwini Ponnappa announced the first ever exclusive women’s doubles tournament in the country, Red Bull Shuttle Up on at B- Dubs.
With the growing popularity of the sport, be it viewership (5th most viewed) or participation (2nd most played), the tournament aims to further boost and improve participation and popularity amongst aspiring women players.
Red Bull Shuttle Up Qualifiers will be held across 5 cities – Delhi, Bangalore, Guwahati, Hyderabad and Mumbai.
The winning pair gets an exciting opportunity to play against the best badminton doubles player in the country.
Red Bull athlete Ashwini Ponnappa said, “My dream is to create awareness and promote doubles badminton in the country.
Open exclusively for women above the age of 16, all matches will be played on the knock out basis where all pairs will play a best of 3 sets with 11 points (rally points) instead of the traditional 21 points a set.
Each pair, with prior notification to the referee can call for a super point once in a set.
By calling for a super point, the pair will get 2 points if they win that particular point. There will be no deduction of points if the pair loses that point.
Players must be prepared to play 5/6 matches in a day, during the event.
Six pairs will qualify for the National Finals (first week of November) — the winners from each city (5 cities) + 1 lucky losing pair.
Lucky loser will be the pair that lost the finals but scored the maximum number of points in that match. In case of 2 teams tied on the same number of points, the same from the previous round will be considered.
Qualifier Details: Delhi Edition: on October 5 ; Bangalore Edition on October 7; Guwahati Edition on October 13 ; Hyderabad Edition on October 14 and Mumbai Edition on October 20 .
