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ietnamese and French players are on the list of around 1,300 local and international shuttlers to compete in the Prim-A Astec Open to be held next month.

The local players come from 170 clubs across the nation.

The tournament, which will run from Sept. 1 to 7 at the Asia Afrika Badminton Hall in Jakarta, features five age categories ' under-11, under-14, under-17, under-19 and adult.

'There will be 1,146 matches for all five events [men's singles, women's singles, men's doubles, women's doubles and mixed doubles],' head of organizing committee Rosiana Tendean told in a press conference here on Wednesday.

Hana Ramadhini and Rena Suwarno are among the national players due to compete, which Rosiana expects will sharpen their competitiveness.

'We hope they will liven up the competition,' said Rosiana.

It is the ninth staging of the tournament, which will see a total of Rp 200 million (US$17,830) in prize money competed for this year.

The competition was initiated by Indonesia's golden couple Alan Budikusuma and Susy Susanti, who have established their sports equipment brand Astec, an abbreviation of Alan-Susy technology, since their retirement.

Alan and Susy delivered Indonesia's first Olympic gold medals when they won the men's singles and women's singles titles respectively in Barcelona in 1992.

A year later Alan took gold medal at the now defunct Badminton World Cup in New Delhi, while Susy seized the world championship title in Birmingham.

'Badminton is the sport that made my name. I could not possibly focus on business only, we also want to give something back to badminton,' Susi said.

Susy hopes the Astec Open will help the Indonesian Badminton Association (PBSI) nurture more talent who will then go on to recapture the glory days of Indonesian badminton.

Several players such as Maria Febe Kusumastuti and Della Destriara Haris were recruited to the national training camp after they triumphed in the Astec Open in previous years.

Another former star Candra Wijaya recently concluded the fifth Yonex-Sunrise Men's Doubles Championships, a badminton competition specializing in doubles events.

Candra who won the men's doubles gold medal at the 2000 Sydney Olympics with his partner Tony Gunawan currently runs the Candra Wijaya International Badminton Center in Cengkareng, West Jakarta after bidding goodbye to competition in 2006.