Easylink Badminton Trophy Challenge
A Tradition in the Making!
Easylink Group continued with the tradition of holding annual Easylink Badminton Trophy Challenge and successfully held the third badminton tournament, which concluded last week. Members of the local Hills District community participated in this tournament. In anticipation of this keenly contested tournament, the players spent most of the year gearing up for this challenge. Inclusion of a few young players this year guaranteed a high level of effort from all the participants and some incredible badminton was played over several weeks of this fantastic sporting activity. As with the last year, Easylink provided the game shirts for each player.
The players formed teams for singles as well as doubles championship for the Easylink Trophy. In the singles tournament, two groups were formed, with each member of a group playing against the others. After a gruelling week of badminton, Farrukh and Amjad topped Group A and reached semi-finals whereas Umer and Shahid reached semi-finals in Group B. Altaf, Faheem, Asif, Ahsen, Habib, Tariq, Faisal, and Zeeshan gave their all in the group matches and played some thrilling matches with the semi-finalists.
Due to a prior commitment, Amjad could not play the semi-final and the next best player in the group, Faheem, qualified. Both semi-finals produced a top-class badminton and after a keen contest, Shahid was able to overcome Farrukh and Umer got the better of Faheem. The singles final lived up to its expectation and was a top billing of the tournament. After a marathon five games, Umer was able to edge out the last year’s champion by the skin of his teeth and was crowned the singles champion for 2018.
For the doubles championship, all the pairs played amongst each other and the top four teams moved to the semi-final stage. As with the singles, a high-class badminton was witnessed in the doubles championship and after completion of the preliminary matches, the teams Faheem/Umer, Farrukh/Shahid, Altaf/Ahsen and Habib/Tariq qualified for the semi-finals. After a tough semi-final, the pairs Faheem/Umer and Altaf/Ahsen proved their mettle by reaching the finals.
The doubles final was also a good contest and after a close first game, won by Altaf/Ahsen duo, the following three games were won by Faheem/Umer pair in a fairly commanding manner. A large number of spectators, especially invited for this occasion, greatly appreciated the quality of badminton on display in the final. Amjad showed great enthusiasm throughout the tournament and undertook video recording of the key moments in both singles and the doubles finals.
A prize distribution ceremony was held at the end of the finals. Muhammad Asif, Chief Executive of Easylink Group, thanked the participants for a successful tournament and announced the continuation of this challenge in the next year. The chief guest on the occasion, Mr Abdul Majid Yousfani, the Consul General of Pakistan in Sydney, handed out the trophies to the winners and runners up. Muhammad Asif then acknowledged the contribution of all the players by awarding individual medals to all of them. Two more awards were given to Mr Rehan Alavi of SBS radio and Mr Aurangzeb of Urdu point for their contribution to the community. Special thank to Mr Mohammed Abid of SANGAT magazine who was acknowledged for his time efforts being given for his community services.
A special award was on offer this year for the player who showed great enthusiasm and sports-man-spirit during the tournament. The management committee unanimously decided that Amjad deserved this award, who was presented with the trophy for the Player of the Tournament.
Congratulations to all the winners!
