Cambs Players (Senior Restricted) & U15 Restricted entries now open

September 8, 2012

Entry forms for the Cambridgeshire Players Tournament and the Cambridgeshire Under-15 Restricted Tournament are now available to download via the Tournament Entry Forms link.

The Players Tournament will be held on Saturday 29th and Sunday 30th September 2012 at Cambridge Regional College, entries close 15th September.

The Under-15 Restricted Tournament will be held on Saturday 13th October 2012 at Burwell, entries close 6th October.

Get your entries in and enjoy some excellent competitive badminton!

U11 and U13 Fun Tournament for Juniors and New Players: 22nd September

September 6, 2012

If you're a budding U11 or U13 badminton player, there's another upcoming Fun Tournament at Burwell on 22nd September from 1pm.

You do not necessarily need to be in a club already to play in a fun tournament. If you want to give the sport a try, or have played at school and enjoyed it, this is a great introduction to a little competition.

For more details see the entry form. There should be some really fun badminton for lots of potential badminton stars!

Cambs U11s Taste Friendly Victory

May 3, 2012

Despite not fielding a Shires team in the age category this season, Cambridgeshire fielded an U11 team for a friendly match against Northants (away) on Sunday 29th April. In an outstanding display of commitment, good nature and ability, Cambs won an absolutely corking overall 49-5 victory against the home team!

The match was won so quickly and so convincingly (25-2) that the home team asked Cambs players to replay the whole match again (to use the courts that had been booked) which was won 24-3, thus giving the overall score of 49-5! Only singles and level doubles were played in this match. Few games went to three ends and many games were won in single figures.

The team was made up of players as young as 8yrs old (Callum Stokes) right up to his brother Eugene who is ranked 15 in the country in the U11 age group. The other team members were Cameron Foo, Harry Zhao, Peter Du, Alexander Harding, Hannah Lin, Megan Johnson, Rachel Owen, Chanumi Gamage and Sophia Abbott.

The future of junior badminton in Cambs is looking very hopeful indeed with this sort of start to our youngsters' badminton careers. Well done all those players who took part!

U17s Represent Cambs at ICT Nottingham

April 20, 2012

The Badminton England U17 Inter Counties Tournament (ICT) was held in Nottingham over 4 days commencing on Thursday 12 April.

Teams from 40 Counties competed, with 10 players in each team. Cambridgeshire were represented by Molly Carter, Jessica Sharman, Gemma McGuire, Emma May, Laura Pickard, Aidan Foo, Thomas Li, Tom Zhang, Kaylan Sutton-Ziaian and Sunny Kong. Over the four days each team played a total of 10 matches.

On the first day the initial match for Cambridgeshire was against Warwickshire - the top seeds. As anticipated, the match went in favour of Warwickshire 10-0. The second match against Avon ended at 5 games each, but Avon won on count-back. The final match on the first day was against Derbyshire, who ran out easy winners 9-1.

Friday was more successful. The day started with a close match against Somerset and resulted in a Cambridgeshire victory 6-4. Two defeats followed, with Berkshire winning 6-4, whilst Cumbria were the victors 7-3. The final match of the day gave Cambridgeshire a convincing win over Wiltshire by 8-2.

On Saturday Cambridgeshire had a victory and a defeat. Durham were defeated 6-4 whilst Cambridgeshire lost to Kent 6-4. On Sunday, the final day, Cambridgeshire finished with a flourish, defeating Northumberland 7-3.

Overall, Cambridgeshire won 4 matches out of 10, ending in 30th position as compared with 27th in 2011.

Cambs Compete at 17-21 ICC for First Time

April 17, 2012

For the first time Cambridgeshire entered a team into the ICC 17-21 competition. The team consisted of 6 men (Matt Price, Josh Males, Campbell Wilson, David Shepherd, Sam Pickup and Samir Sattar) and 5 women (Jessica James, Hannah Sharman, Rachel Farrington, Carolyn Key and Beth Parrish) with many of them not ever having played at county level and certainly not in an inter county environment. It was excellent experience for the players and they played very well together considering they weren't accustomed to playing with each other.

Despite the fact that the whole ethos of the competition is the transition from junior to senior badminton, with the emphasis on progressing young players rather than highly experienced ones, there was an impressive array of U19 and older England players participating at the championships! There were many teams with players that bore the legend ENGLAND on their backs.

However, Cambs held their own very well indeed and were just points off drawing with strong Warwickshire in their group and losing 1-5 after some 3 end-er, hard fought battles. Cambs then drew with Bedfordshire, who put forward England player Darren Adamson and his brother so drawing was quite an achievement. However, because Beds did slightly better against Warwickshire than Cambs did, we came bottom of the group. Unfortunately, we approached Cornwall next with the delusion that they were easy prey. They were very strong in this competition and again, Cambs missed drawing with them by a couple of points and lost 2-4.

Subsequent play-offs against Kent (with very strong players such as James Au) and Wiltshire saw 3-3 draws with Cambridgeshire.

All Cambs players gave their best performances for this competition and can hold their heads high as none of their opponents could have felt they had easy wins. Many ties went to three ends with setting. The team finished in 20th position but possibly a bit more experience in this level of competition could see improvements next year. A great weekend’s badminton!

Sharman and Sutton-Ziaian Lead the Pack: Cambs U19 Restricted Results

April 8, 2012

At the Under 19 Cambridgeshire Junior Restricted Tournament, there were double successes for Kaylan Sutton-Ziaian and Hannah Sharman.

Last year, Kaylan won the Under 15 Boys singles and doubles. Having now moved up to the Under 19 level, he repeated last year's success. In the final of the singles he defeated Josh Males, a regular senior County player, 21-12. Up to the half-way stage the match was evenly contested, but then Kaylan charged to the win with controlled placement forcing his opponent into errors. In his semi-final, Kaylan had beaten James Yow 21-11, whilst Josh got the better of Campbell Wilson by 26-24.

In the Boys doubles, Kaylan continued his successful partnership of last year with Aidan Foo. They beat Josh Males and Campbell Wilson in a tight final game 21-19.

In the girls events, it was plain sailing for Hannah Sharman. In the singles she overwhelmed Gemma McGuire to the tune of 21-6. Hannah then partnered Jessica James to defeat Rachel Hoath and Robynne George 21-9 in the girls doubles.