Carolina: costliest player at Premier Badminton League auction
World's number one and Olympic gold medalist Carolina Marin became the costliest player of the Premier Badminton League auction after she was bagged by Hyderabad Hunters for Rs.61.5 lakh. Sung Ji-hyun of South Korea went to Mumbai Rockets for Rs.60 lakhs. Third costliest bid went to Denmark's Jan 'O' Jorgensen for Rs.59 lakhs.
The third season of Premier Badminton League will start from 2 January 2017 and will go on till 17 January. Six teams - Delhi Acers, Mumbai Rockets, Chennai Smashers, Hyderabad Hunters, Awadhe Warriors and Bengaluru Top Guns will battle in the biggest badminton tournament in the world. The tournament will be held in Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Mumbai, New Delhi and Lucknow.
Top world shuttlers including world number one and Olympic gold medal winner Carolina Marin have confirmed their participation for the 2017 edition of Premier Badminton League. PV Sindhu and Denmark's Viktor Axelsen will also be among 16 Olympic medalists who will participate in the 2017 PBL. The Players' Auction would be held on Wednesday, 9 November 2016 in New Delhi.
Malaysia's world number one Lee Chong Wei along with China's world number four Li Xuerui and number three Nozomi Okuhara will give 2017 PBL a miss due to clashes with Chinese league. Japan players have also decided not to participate due to their national games.
Indian star players PV Sindhu, Saina Nehwal and Parupalli Kashyap did not see prices go up for them at the PBL auction in New Delhi. 2016 Rio Olympics silver medalist Sindhu was bagged by Chennai Smashers for Rs.39 lakhs. Saina Nehwal went to Awadhe Warriors for Rs.33 lakhs while Kashyap was bought by Chennai team for Rs.8 lakhs.
Srikanth Kidambi fetched an amount of Rs.51 lakhs as he was bagged by Awadhe Warriors to become the costliest Indian player at the auction.
