U15 Quadrangular Home Nations: Round Up

A huge congratulations to our U15s who finished in 2nd place at Bangor University Sport in Wales at the weekend!

You’ve done us proud! What a great experience for everyone involved.

Report below by Badminton Wales

As we headed in to May, the best u15 players from the 4 Home Nations came together for three days of intensive battle. The 2023 edition was held in the wonderful Canolfan Brailsford, Sports Centre in the University of Bangor and the staff have worked tirelessly to get the hall prepared.

The Event was dominated by England who won all matches dropping only one game (against Wales). Scotland produced a strong performance against Ireland to take second place from a young Ireland team.

Day 1 was about the Team; Day 2/3 was all about the Individuals. The format of the event sees Singles and Mixed played to Finals on Saturday. There was some unbelievable quality on show. England again were the dominant force and all need to judge their level on this excellent Team coached so well by Hayley Adcock, Chris Tonks and Sarah Burtenshaw.

While Sajan Senthuran (Eng) and Kalyan Manoj (Eng) fought their way through to the finals, one of the best games of the day was Corey Chambers (Irl) 21-15 17-21 23-21 victory over George Clare (Eng).

The semi-finals saw another series of tight matches but bronze medals went to the high performing Joel Joby (Eng) and Siddhanth Shirol (Eng).

The Boy’s Singles Final saw Sajan take on Kalyan. Sajan had suffered from cramp the previous evening, but any
thoughts that Kalyan would underestimate his opponent, because of this, was quickly dispelled. The match was of extremely high quality and Kalyan came out on top with a 21-16 19-21 21-15 scoreline. No doubt, both these boys will be worth watching in years to come.

The Girls singles saw another series of strong performances. Wales’ own Isha Mekala, who had played outstandingly well to take the only rubber England lost in the team event, could not repeat that performance in the Individual event semi-final. The other semi saw a wonderful game between Aahna Bhatia and Yashica Racharla (both Eng) and Aahna squeezed through 21-16 20-22 21-14. The Final was another magnificent battle with Rajvi Parab (Eng) showing her strength to take the
title, with a deserving 22-20 14-21 21-10 scoreline.

The Mixed doubles also commenced on Saturday and was probably the most exciting of the events. Without doubt the closest match of the entire weekend was the game between Jeffery Rong and Amira Pender (Irl) and Ingrid Wang and Arnav Saraswat (Scot) with the Scots coming through 26-24 in the third.

The Semi-finals saw an all-English affair with Siddhanth Shirol/Mia Fox taking out Rajvi Parab/Joel Joby and George Clare/Katie Hoult winning against Kalyan Manoj/Yashica Racharla. And after these young players battled it out, eventually Siddhanth and Mia won the final against George and Katie with a score of 22-20 21-14.

The Girls Doubles provided another of the most exciting games with Hannah Shochan/Amira Pender (Ire) playing Shreya Vargheese/Katie Hoult (Sco/Eng). With the passion that only badminton can produce the scratch pair snuck the match 24-22 in the third. Neither they nor the Scottish pairing could stop the 2 dominant English pairings of Mia Fox/Yashica Racharla against Aahna Bhatia/Rajvi Parab. An outstanding final was taken by Parab and Bhatia with a score of 18-21 21-18 21-19.

The Boys Doubles completed the English dominance when Siddhanth Shirol/Joel Joby took the title from Kalyan Manoj/Sajan Senthuran in two edgy sets. Bronze medallists were Ireland’s Jeffery Rong/Luke Marks and scratch Eng/Ire pairing of George Care/Robert Cowman.

This was a fantastic event which was brilliantly supported by the staff of Bangor University who provided a fantastic venue. However, even more importantly was the tremendous work provided by Tournament Referee Stephen Temple. His application and understanding of the regulations ensured that the event ran so smoothly without any issues. His only source of annoyance was his targeted schedule on Day 2 which ran over by 6 minutes.

A huge thank you to Badminton Wales for hosting the event and providing this opportunity for our young players to gain experience and develop! Well done everyone.