"Badminton spectacle in Novi Sad". This would be the shortest possible resume for this big international tournament – the Serbian Youth International NOVI SAD 2013, lasting from June 7th to June 9th. This most important sport event for the Badminton Association of Serbia in 2013 pushed the limits in terms of event management in Serbia and even further.

Participants praised this tournament which had its first edition in the calendar of Badminton Europe Confederation with the general opinion that it had beaten all expectations and that in time it will grow to become very important event in the international badminton scene.

A Grand Opening Ceremony took place on the first day, with the presence of unprecedented number of officials, national and international institution representatives, was the introduction for matches that took place on courts of Sports Center ‘’Slana bara’’.  Opening Ceremony was attended by Mirko Kantar, Head of department within Ministry of Youth and Sports, Predrag Svilar, Member of Novi Sad City Hall in charge of Youth and Sports, Nikola Kuljaca, Olympic Committee of Serbia Sports Director, Vladimir Batez, Serbian Sports Association representative, Prof. Dr. Puzant Kassabian, President of Balkan Badminton Association, Vesna Jovicic, Managing Director of Novi Sad City Museum, Nemanja Radovic, City of Belgrade Secretariat for Sports and Youth representative, Predrag Marcetic, owner of Tin Sped Company. During the Opening Ceremony, representatives of Ministry of Youth and Sports and Olympic Committee of Serbia donated sets of badminton equipment to the recently formed Badminton Developing Centres located in the cities of Pancevo, Vrsac, Zrenjanin, Kovin and Obrenovac.

After the opening speech given by Mirko Kantar, Head of department within Ministry of Youth and Sports, Predrag Svilar as the City Host addressed the auditorium and officially opened the tournament.

After the opening ceremony, almost 100 young competitors from Hungary, Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia impatiently awaited the Saturday and the beginning of the matches.  During three days of competition, young players in the age groups U11, U13, U15 and U17 played at their peek and made the complete event look even more glorious. On the courts of ‘’Slana bara’’ participants had chance to see many interesting matches full of suspense and after all the drama Serbia took the title of the most successful team by winning 43 medals, 9 of which were gold medals. After Serbia, the most successful countries were Bulgaria and Hungary. Very well presentation of skills showed also young and promising players from Romania, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Serbian team was comprised of competitors from ten badminton clubs and was presented as the team with the largest number of competitors in the whole tournament.

Gold medal standings for Serbia would have been even greater but the golden boy of Serbian team, Dragoslav Petrovic, due to the illness had to surrender the semi-final match in Boy’s singles U17 and satisfy himself and the Serbian team with the bronze medal. Having all in mind, Serbian team had a fantastic score on this tournament, and the most pleasing detail is the fact that medals from the First Serbian Youth International NOVI SAD 2013 will decorate show cases of ten badminton centres in Serbia, since competitors from so many  of the Serbian clubs had their representatives on the medal winning podium.

Radomir Jovovic, Badminton Association of Serbia chairman of the board, felt huge satisfaction, but also relief after the closing of the event due to the fact that himself and the whole Serbian badminton team worked extremely hard in order to organize a tournament worthy of its reputation.

Jovovic gave his official statement: ‘’This tournament represents the crow jewel when it comes to our Badminton Association ant its organizational attempts. In the past 20 years Serbian Association hosted a large number of national and international events, but Serbian Youth International NOVI SAD 2013 has totally surpassed all previous tournaments organized in our country. We are very satisfied with the fact that everything went very well and the participants left Novi Sad full of beautiful impressions. I was very pleased because this grandiose event marked the year of the twentieth anniversary celebrated by our Association. I would like to thank to all of the individuals, institutions and companies that provided help and support, and without whom it would not be possible to successfully organize and manage this event. The list is to long, but I would like to mention all of them: Ministry of Youth and Sports of Republic of Serbia and City of Novi Sad as two of the main patrons, Olympic Committee of Serbia, Sports Association of Serbia, Novi Sad City Museum, Touristic Organization of Novi Sad, Balkan Badminton Association, Tin Sped and Yonex, Serbian Institute for Sport and Sports Medicine, Anti-Doping Agency of Serbia, Lasta Transportation Company, Winner's, Nasa Koka and Time Zone’’.