Cambridgeshire Badminton fielded a good range of teams in the Eastern Region Single Sex Tournament held at the Sportsdock at the University of East London on 26th April.
The teams were:
U15: Boys A
Leo Huang & Peter Du
U15: Boys B
Cameron Harris & Murray Reid
U15: Girls
Amy Zhang & Hannah Milton
U13: Boys A
James Xu & Harry Zhao
U13: Girls A
Chanumi Gamage & Sophia Abbott
U13: Girls B
Rachel Owen & Alice Bates
It was a long and gruelling, but extremely fun day of badminton, with teams playing a match consisting of a doubles, and two singles against each of their opponents. This took a toll on a number of players, with some Cambs players feeling cramp or injuries as the day went on.
Despite their difficulties, the overall results were extremely creditable. The U13 boys James and Harry enjoyed commanding victories over all but one of the other teams in their competition, and the tournament came down to a thrilling match against a very strong Essex pair. All four boys plenty excellently, but eventually James and Harry walked away with a well-deserved silver medal.
In the U13 girls tournament, Hertfordshire and Suffolk had also fielded two teams each, and had strong players. The Cambs girls showed a real desire to win though, and the day came to an end with an exciting crunch match between the Cambs A and B teams. Played in excellent spirits, the game eventually went to Sophia and Chanumi who beat Alice and Rachel 2-1. This meant that Cambs A had secured the silver medals overall, and Cambs B took the bronze spot.
In the U15 tournaments, the Cambs A won 4/6 matches and came 3rd (Leo won 6/6 singles and 4/6 doubles; Peter won 2/6 singles and 4/6 doubles) and the Cambs B team unfortunately came in last position.
The U15 girls team also came 3rd, even though Amy suffered an injury part-way through and had to pull out, and Chanumi stood in for the remaining games.
Congratulations to all the players, who put on a great show.