Titles are real Silver lining for North duo
JUNIOR BADMINTON
THERE was success for two of Northumberland’s girls in the Badminton England Under-17 Silver Tournament at the Tyneside Badminton Centre.
This had originally been due to take place at the start of March but was cancelled because of the wintry weather.
Although some of the original entrants could not make the new date and the girls’ entries were somewhat reduced, there were players to take some of the vacated places and the level of play was still of a very good standard.
In the girls’ doubles, home player Rachel Bogan teamed up with Lincolnshire’s Megan Diggle - and they carried all before them to win the event comfortably.
It was the mixed doubles which brought success for North’s Sarah Bambrick in a scratch pairing with Marc Graham, one of several Scottish boys who travelled down for the tournament.
Graham had already showed his promise by taking the boys’ singles and he combined strongly with Bambrick to win their group matches without losing an end.
The final was a tight affair against the Lincolnshire duo of George Railton and Megan Diggle, the gold medals eventually going to Bambrick and Graham 15-13, 13-15 15-9.
The later stages of the boys’ events were dominated by the Scots.
Fraser Sheriff from Dunblane defeated the top seed, Lancashire’s Akshay Narayan, in one semifinal and Graham came through against Lewis Hart, also from Scotland, in the other.
In the group rounds, Northumberland’s Arif Alam had scored two good wins and had pushed Graham quite close, only losing to 12 and 11.
The final was an excellently-contested match and was claimed by Graham 9-15, 15-9, 15-10. The tables were turned in the doubles when Graham and Sheriff had to face fellow countrymen Lewis Hart and Isaac Weir.
In what was probably the most closely-contested match of the day, the latter pair sealed the victory 16-14, 11-15, 15-13.
The girls’ singles was won by Teesside’s Annie Zhu, who defeated Lucy Walker from Hull 15-7, 15-9.
Bambrick took the bronze-medal consolation final with a 10-15, 16-14, 15-13 success over team-mate Bogan.