The island’s annual under 17 badminton tournament was played on Saturday 7th October, 2023 at the NSC.
We started off with the boys singles where the first round of the competition consisted of 4 groups of either 4 or 5 players. Group A was won convincingly by the top seeded player Martin Cheung who, currently ranked 10th in the UK for his age group, was always going to be tough to beat. Runner up in this group winning 3 out of 4 of his matches was Will Osbourn. Group B was won by Edward Cheung (no relation to Martin) who won all of his games with the second spot going to Advaith (Adi) Malikreddy. Group C’s winner was Lok Yien Cheung (Again no relation!) also winning all his matches with Charlie Albiston as the runner up. The final group was won by Tommy Cheng, giving away only 34 points across all 4 games with Ollie Townell heading the remainder of the group.
In the two semi-final matches Martin beat Edward comfortably 15-2, 15-3 and Tommy beat young Lok 15-9, 15-10. The final didn’t disappoint with Tommy playing exceptionally well in the first game keeping the score neck and neck until the end and finally losing only 15-13 to Martin. Martin showed his strength and experience in the second game stretching his lead slightly to take it 15-11. A great game to watch!
Next to begin was the girls singles which was played in one group of 6 players. After a raft of tight results with 4 of the matches going to 3 the girls final was contested by Laura Garrity and Kelly Domingo. This turned out to be a battle of wills with Laura edging the first game 15-14. Kelly battled back in the second to win it 15-9. This seemed to boost Kelly’s confidence and by the third game she was in her stride but Laura pushed her right to the end with Kelly taking the victory at 15-12.
The boys doubles started off with two groups. Group A had to contend with the combined might of Martin and Tommy who proved too much for the remaining pairs. Second in this group winning all but one of their matches was Charlie Albiston and Euan McConnell. The second group was won by Lok and Edward with Ziyad Sulthan and Adi as runners up again winning all but one of their games. The final resulted in a comfortable 15-4, 15-6 victory for Martin and Tommy.
The girls doubles was a battle between the three pairs of Ameya Malikreddy and Kelly, Molly Bell and Laura and Fatima Syed and Katie Evans. This was always going to be difficult to call with the best players on the day taking the win. Fatima and Katie proved to be the pair that played consistently well and holding on for the wins in two close matches. After losing the first game to Laura and Molly 13-15 they came back strongly to take the next two games 15-2, 15-4. Against Ameya and Kelly they edged away at the end to take the first game 15-12 but Kelly and Ameya regrouped for the second game winning comfortably to 7. Neither pair was prepared to give way and the third game was a true battle with Fatima and Katie being pushed all the way but holding on to take the win 15-13.
The last event of the day was the mixed doubles which was again played as one group of 5 pairs. With a lot of excellent badminton played the final came down to another head to head between the contenders of both the boys and girls singles finals. This turned out to be another great battle with the first game being point for point until 13 all when Tommy and Kelly played two great points to take the first game 15-13. Martin and Laura started the second game with a change of tactics and battled home to victory taking the final two games 15-8, 15-11 giving Martin the triple once again.
