LAHORE: Irfan Saeed Bhatti and Azeem Sarwar of Pakistan’s march in the Bahrain International Badminton Tournament halted in the pre-quarter-final stage, according to information received here on Wednesday.

Irfan beat Ben George Joseph of Bahrain in the first round 21-12, 21-9.

He won the second round against Arjun Karnavar of Bahrain 21-11, 21-7.

In the pre-quarter-final he was unlucky to meet Akshit Mahajan, a ranked player of India and lost by the score of 21-17, 21-8.

Azeem won his first match against Mayank Behal of India 21-19, 21-15.

He overpowered Adnan Ebrahim of Bahrain 21-6, 21-5. But in the pre-quarter-final he lost to Christie Jonatan of Indonesia 21-8, 21-10.

In men’s doubles, Wajid Ali and Amir Saeed lost in the pre-quarter-final to Delos Santos Aries and Alvin Morada of the Philippines 21-16, 21-13.

Irfan and Azeem also reached the pre-quarter-final and lost to Mohammad Fachrikar and Reza Pahlevi Isfahani of Indonesia 21-19, 21-19.

In the mixed doubles, Irfan and Ghazala Saddique reached the pre-quarter-final and lost to Arun Vishnu and Aparna Balan of India 21-11, 21-7.

Meanwhile, the Pakistan Badminton Federation in a press release states: “We have not received any grant from Pakistan Sports Board for the last four years. With the receipt of this year’s grant, we intend to expand our activities.

“We will send players for more tournaments and also arrange coaching and training for our young players in international academies.

“Five years back, our two junior players — Soban Jamil and Taimoor Arab — were selected by Badminton Asia Confederation for their development programme and participated in many junior international tournaments along with receiving three weeks coaching. We are approaching Badminton Asia Confederation for inclusion of our two male and one female players in their development programme.

“We are confident of winning at least one silver and four bronze medals in the South Asian Games to be held in India next year,” he concluded.

Published in Dawn, November 13th, 2014