National Badminton League

Badminton Wales Richard Vaughan was invited to play in the opening match of the USA National Badminton League (NBA). Co-owned by World Doubles Champion Howard Bach from Anaheim, USA. The match took place at the San Gabriel Badminton club just outside of LA, USA.

The event drew a star cast with Olympic Badminton and World Badminton Champions Taufik Hidayat, and Tony Gunawan from Indonesia, split in to two teams. Other world Class talent included Howard Bach (USA), Nicole Gerther (Germany), Halim (INA), Andrew Dabeka (Canada), Anna Rice (Canada), Mono Santoso (INA), Lilian Chow (USA), and Richard Vaughan (WAL).

The two teams captained by Taufik Hidayat and Tony Gunawan saw a tough encounter with the RVBA's Richard Vaughan winning the important final rubber in mixed doubles with his Korean partner Lee against Halim and Santoso taking the game for Tony Gunawans Blue team 7-6.

Vaughan's other match saw him team up with Tony Gunawan to beat Taufik and Halim in the mens doubles.

Vaughan commented "Its a great idea Howard has here with the NBL and I hope it gets the support it deserves across the States. There is almost a thousand crowd for this small demonstration game and it gives a good indication of how things could take off. Personally it as great playing with Tony, he is not bad (joke)."

For more details on teh USA National Badminton League do to www.ablbadminton.com