1999 Boston Open Sanctioned by USA Badminton Sponsored by MIT Badminton Club Friday 19th March - Sunday 21st March

Draws / Results

Player Profiles

David Welch

Local phenom, David Welch, began playing badminton with his family at the Gut 'n Feathers Club in Marblehead, Massachusetts. By the age of ten he had attended his first Junior Nationals and started his sizeable collection of national medals. Welch, now 21, has always been a committed athlete. Even in his younger years he managed to balance his enthusiasm for hockey, soccer, and sailing, competing in all of these into his high school years. Eventually, however, badminton stood out like no other sport. There are many reasons for this, but David especially credits the skill, energy and humor mixed with hard work supplied by his coaches Barbara and Dick McKinley of Marblehead.

Upon graduation from high school, Welch deferred entering the University of Michigan, and relocated to the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs in order to hasten his progress towards becoming an elite badminton player. In 1996, he was a member of the gold-medal winning Pan-American team and later spent three months in Sweden competing in tournaments throughout Europe. Recent results include a doubles victory in the Under 21 division of the 1998 Junior Nationals with partner Bob Malaythong.

Welch's rigorous week consists of 35 hours in training in addition to the time needed for his studies; he is currently pursuing a degree in business at the University of Colorado.

Melinda Keszthelyi

When she started playing badminton as an eleven year old girl, Melinda Keszthelyi's only real goal was to find a sport that was played in a warm, dry place. Her parents had insisted that she take up a sport and had started her off training for distance running. It didn't taker her very long at all to discover that 5 mile runs by herself on cold, dark, snowy afternoons were not how she wanted to spend her time. Going with friends to a local gymnasium, she found badminton far more congenial, not to mention comfortable, at least in some important ways. Of course, training fro international competition is not without its pains and Melinda admits that although she really does like training, she prefers tournaments because of the "friends, fun and competition."

Having taken her badminton all the way to the top in Hungary - she was last year's singles and doubles national champion - Melinda came to the United States and has been tearing up the courts here at a steady clip. She won the ladies singles at the Northeast Regionals, the DC Open and the Connecticut Open. In the meantime, she returned to Budapest to successfully defend her doubles title. As a result, Melinda is expecting in May to travel to Copenhagen to compete in the World Cup.

Melinda loves competing in badminton, but has prepared for the day that she will hang up her racquet. She holds a degree in Textile Engineering in Budapest and looks forward to the day when she can work in that field.

Stuart Arthur

It is no wonder that Stuart Arthur, Assistant Coach at Toronto's Boulevard Club and elite Canadian badminton pro, has high aspirations for himself. Listing among his life goals "to be the best player that Canada has ever had," he has established a long competitive history to support it. Arthur, now 20, has 5 Canadian Junior National Titles under his belt, along with being recognized 14 times as a Provincial Junior Champ. His successes are no longer reserved to the junior circuit. Arthur notes among his biggest badminton thrills as participating in two victorious Devlin Cup teams. And he is working hard towards his long term goals of wining a national mixed title with sister Cindy, and ultimately, representing Canada in the Olympic Games.

For Arthur, playing badminton has not just been individual competition; it has truly been a family affair. His father, Keith, has always been his coach and he cites playing mixed with his sisters as one of the most thrilling aspects of the game for him. Stuart recollects, "I started to play badminton when my father got me involved at a summer camp when I was five years old. At that time, I could walk under the net without touching it."

Birgitte Patel

If you're looking for Gitte Patel at a badminton tournament, it's a good bet that you can find her on or near the finals courts. Since coming to the United States 10 years ago she has established herself as a force to be reckoned with in Ladies Doubles and Mixed Doubles. In the past year alone in Ladies Doubles she won both the Connecticut Open and the Northeast Regional and was a finalist at both the Boston Open and the MidAtlantic Classic.

Born in Copenhagen, Denmark, Gitte took up the sport of badminton at the age of 8 when friends got her involved in a youth program at a local club. At age 20, she moved to England where, playing for Middlesex County, she had "the best badminton of my life partnering with Gillian Gilks who was All-England." in 1989, Gitte moved to the United States and married, but did not take up badminton here for some time because they could not find a place to play. "This was before the Internet," explained Gitte. "We kept calling all the churches asking if they played badminton because in England almost all the badminton played on the County level is in church halls. They thought we were crazy. When we found that we were just five minutes away from our local club, I almost went crazy!" By 1993 she was back in the swing placing 5th in the US Nationals in ladies Doubles with Ann French.

Gitte likes to play badminton for the exercise ("I practice just as hard as I play in a tournament") but also for the socializing ("You meet so many nice people at tournaments and I always have fun when I play!") Husband Vilpesh is also an avid badminton player and their son, Sean, at just 4 1/2 years old, is fast becoming one. A fixture at all the tournaments, Sean has mastered hitting balloons and Gitte has moved along to feeding him with birds. Gitte's ambition is one day to be able to play mixed doubles with Sean.

Participants