Round Up: Lanarkshire Junior Singles League No.2
By Lanarkshire Badminton
The first Lanarkshire Badminton Group competition of 2024 was the Lanarkshire Junior Singles League No.2, which took place at the Alistair McCoist Complex in East Kilbride.
For entries, there was a slight increase with 47 competitors comparing to 38 from the same event at the beginning of the season in August. Players attending were predominately from the Lanarkshire, Glasgow & North Strathclyde and West of Scotland areas.
Group 1 had many close matches and there was not much separating each of the players.
Elona Kennedy with the success of last weekend at U15 Penicuik performed well finishing third in the group. For the top spot, it was a tight finish with Freddie Harris having the edge over Blair Whitson. Both won 7 out of 8 rubbers however the head-to-head score between them was the decider, with Harris winning 21-19.
Lexie Boland came out on top with a clean sweep of wins – 8 out of 8 in Group 2. Lexie was closely followed Atharv Shamra and Logan Haas in second and third places respectively.
It was similar outcome in Group 3 with Shaan Suvarna winning 100% of matches. Emma Martin managed to secure second spot, despite being pushed all the way. This was demonstrated within the opening group match between Adham Sarfraz and herself, with Martin edging it 21-20.
This trend was continued in Groups 4 and 5 with Cladiu Whyte and Arnim Dunbar winning 7 out 7 matches separately to top their groups. Whyte was closely followed by Dharsan Gopal, with a narrow win (21-20) over Gopal.
In Group 5, there was not much differences in ability level between each player which made it an interesting finish to the end, however Dunbar’s consistent performances meant he finished in first position.
We had few of our volunteer team unavailable to help on the day, so it was all hands on deck.
We would like to thank committee members Frank Turnbull for organising and delivering the competition and Pam Casey who was on hand to support/assist on the day and arranging the raffle & clothing stall. Also big thanks to parents Carol Kennedy and Anna Agnew who manned the stall – which was greatly appreciated.
Pam added: ‘‘As a LBG Committee member and BASE Coach it was very positive to see so many local children take part in a local event. The standard of play has improved since last year with many close games played with good sportsmanship. We had help from parents who manned the fundraising stalls which was a great help.’’
Our next tournament is the Lanarkshire U15/19 Junior Open which will take place on 2nd and 3rd March – so save the date!