The second Easylink Badminton Challenge successfully concluded last week. This year’s championship saw more participants who played some incredible badminton over several weeks of this fantastic sporting activity. Keeping up with last year’s tradition, Easylink provided the game shirts for the tournament for each participant.
Badminton Bros fielded teams for singles as well as doubles championship for the Easylink Trophy. Two groups of six were formed and each member of the group played against the others. After a grilling week of badminton, Faheem and Amjad topped Group A and reached semi-finals whereas Shahid and Farrukh reached semi-finals in Group B. Altaf, Habib, Asif, Naveed, Faisal, Zeeshan, Israr and Shahid Mian gave their all in the group matches and played some thrilling matches with the semi-finalists.
A keen contest was seen during the semi-finals and after a back-breaking effort, Farrukh managed to topple Faheem and Shahid overcame Amjad’s challenge to reach the singles final. The final was another top-class match and Shahid won the singles championship for the second year running.
The doubles championship saw every member of the group pair up with every other member and play against other teams in the group. This arrangement lead to a large number of matches to be played before the finals. As with the singles, a high-class badminton was witnessed in the doubles championship and after completion of the group matches, Altaf and Faheem topped the two groups and were teamed up for the semi-finals against Asif and Zeeshan. Similarly, Shahid and Farrukh ended up as a pair and played against the duo of Amjad and Faisal. The Altaf-Faheem pair and the Shahid-Farrukh pair won their respective matches and qualified for the doubles final.
The doubles final was probably the most memorable match of the tournament with both teams winning two games each in a best-of-five final to set-up the tense final game. That game went to the wire and Altaf-Faheem pair was able to hold their nerves to win the final by a narrow margin.
A prize distribution ceremony was held after the final and the winners and runners up trophies were awarded by the chief guest on the occasion, Mr Abdul Majid Yousfani, the Council General of Pakistan along with Muhammad Asif, CEO, EasyLink Group presented trophies to the winners and runners of the tournament. Mr Shahid Malik received the winners single trophy while Farrukh Syed got the runners trophy.The doubles championship trophy was given to Mr Faheem Jafar and Altaf Khan while Mr Shahid Malik & Farrukh Syed received the runners trophy. On this occasion Mr Muhammad Asif on behalf of Easylink Group thanked all the participates who put their full efforts to make this a successfully tournament.Mr Abdul Majid Yousfani, Consul General of Pakistan commended the efforts made by Mr Asif for sponsoring the tournament. He said that these type of healthy activities not only keep players fit but also a positive gesture towards serving communities. Tea and snacks were also served on the occasion.
Congratulations to the winner of this year’s tournament!
