Jul 18

Bach & Gunawan Win Silver at 2011 U.S. Open Grand Prix Gold Event

Print

For Immediate Release

July 18, 2011

Bach & Gunawan Win Silver at 2011 U.S. Open Grand Prix Gold Event

Earning Valuable Olympic Qualifying Points for 2012 Olympic Games in London, England

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – Howard Bach (San Francisco, Calif./Orange, Calif.) and Tony Gunawan (Los Angeles, Calif.) continued their successful summer of badminton racking up valuable Olympic qualifying points, winning the silver medal  in men’s doubles at the 2011 U.S. Open Grand Prix Gold Badminton Championships.  The event was held at the Orange County Badminton Club in Orange, Calif., July 11-16, 2011.

Bach and Gunawan got off to a strong start, defeating Korea’s Min Chun Liao and Chun Wei Wu two games to one (15-21, 21-15 and 21-12) in the first round of the tournament.  In the second round, Bach and Gunawan defeated Anthony Clark and Chris Langridge of England two games to none (22-20 and 21-13).  In their quarterfinal match, Bach and Gunawan won in a walkover over Germany’s Ingo Kindervater and Johannes Schoettler.  In the semifinals, Bach and Gunawan defeated Japan’s Hirokatsu Hashimoto and Noriyasu Hirata two games to one (14-21, 21-19 and 21-14).  In the gold medal match, Bach and Gunawan fell two games to none (9-21 and 19-21) to Sung Hyun Ko and Yong Dae Lee of Korea.

Medal results for the 2011 U.S. Open Grand Prix Gold Badminton Championships were as follows:

Women’s Singles:

Tzu Ying Tai, Chinese Taipei – Gold

Sayaka Sato, Japan – Silver

Eriko Hirose, Japan – Bronze

Inthanon Ratchanok, Thailand – Bronze

Men’s Singles:

Sho Sasaki, Japan – Gold

Tien Minh Nguyen, Vietnam – Silver

Marc Zweibler, Germany – Bronze

Hsuan Yi Hsueh – Bronze

Women’s Doubles:

Jung Eun Ha and Min Jung Kim, Korea – Gold

Kyung Eun Jung and Ha Na Kim, Korea – Silver

Wen Hsing Cheng and Yu Chin Chien, Chinese Taipei – Bronze

Miyuki Maeda and Satoko Suetsuna, Japan – Bronze

Men’s Doubles:

Sung Hyun Ko and Yong Dae Lee, Korea – Gold

Howard Bach and Tony Gunawan, USA – Silver

Naoki Kawamae and Shoji Sato, Japan – Bronze

Hirokatsu Hashimoto and Noriyasu Hirata, Japan – Bronze

Mixed Doubles:

Yong Dae Lee and Jung Eun Ha, Korea – Gold

Hung Ling Chen and Wen Hsing Cheng, Chinese Taipei – Silver

Shoji Sato and Shizuka Matsuo, Japan – Bronze

Shintaro Ikeda and Reiko Shiota, Japan – Bronze

For complete results and full brackets 2011 U.S. Open Grand Prix Gold Badminton Championships please visit:  http://www.tournamentsoftware.com/sport/tournament.aspx?id=EF6040CD-A136-4B6C-9AE7-53696474923E.

For more information on the Orange County Badminton Club, please visit:  ocbadmintonclub.com.

As a Grand Prix Gold event, the silver medal finish at the tournament could prove very important for Bach and Gunawan in terms of qualifying for the 2012 Olympic Games in London, England.  Given their performances so far this summer, the 2005 World Champions in men’s doubles appear to be well on their way to the 2012 Olympic Games in London, England with Gunawan on track to being sworn in as a U.S. citizen in September 2011.

The Badminton World Federation’s Olympic Qualification season for the 2012 Olympic Games began on May 1, 2011 and will run through April 30, 2012.  Participation in the Olympic Games is solely determined by an athlete’s international ranking.  Five badminton events will be contested at the 2012 Olympic Games in London, England; men’s doubles, women’s doubles, men’s singles, women’s singles and mixed doubles.

For more information, please contact Cecil Bleiker, NGB Media Services Director for USA Badminton at 719-330-2062.  This press release is also available on the USOC’s media specific website at PRESSBOX.TEAMUSA.ORG.