Badminton: Hall heads seeds for Ulster

(First Edition)

BRITAIN'S top player, Darren Hall, and eight of England's gold medal winning Commonwealth Games team are among the seeds for the Ulster Milk Games Open championships in Belfast from September 16 to 18.

Hall, seven times the England national champion, had to miss the Commonwealth Games in Canada last month because of a niggling back injury but is the top seed in the Belfast tournament.

This event, the first in the new Friends Provident British Grand Slam series, will have Peter Knowles, of Kent, as second seed in the men's singles while Sue Louis Lane, of Devon, and Jo Muggeridge, of Kent, are seeded one and two in the women's singles.

Simon Archer, of Worcestershire, and Chris Hunt, of Lancashire - the Commonwealth Games champions - are the top seeds in the men's doubles.