Scotland U18 JNR Select Vs British Police

This Thursday 8th February, the U18 Junior National Squad Select were faced up against the British Police in a team match held at Scotstoun Badminton Academy.

This presented a fantastic opportunity to compete in a team setting and allowed the coaches to provide junior players with in-competition feedback against experienced opposition.

Despite it being fiercely fought and neck and neck throughout the duration, all coming down to the mixed doubles, the British Police won the match 6-5.

The match format was as follows:
2 Men’s Singles
2 Women’s Singles
2 Men’s Doubles
2 Women’s Doubles
3 Mixed Doubles

The U18s won the women’s singles and police levelled things up in men’s singles with a win by former National Champion Gordon Thomson. The girls doubles then gave the advantage back to U18 with 2 good women’s doubles wins only for the Police to peg it back in the men’s doubles with 2 hard fought wins, including a win for former National Champion Graeme Smith. This left it down to the mixed doubles with all 3 matches going to 3 sets the experience of the Police partnerships prevailed to in 2 of the 3 games and secured the match 6-5 in their favour.

U18s Coach, Bruce Flockhart says:

“Great sportsmanship and level of play seen from all competitors and the U18s team have left with invaluable experience of playing against players with a far greater match play experience. These young players will be able to go away and work on using the experience gained to help them in future competitions. Thanks goes out to the British Police team who were all very happy to chat to our young players after the games and give them some thoughts on how the game had played out.”

Boys:
Alfie Martin
Blair Tait
Ewan Stewart
Lewis Smith
Lingyun Xiao

Girls:
Deepti Vijayakumar
Gemma Foulis
Qing Yang Xiao
Ingrid Wang
Jaagruti Mannem

Coaches:
Bruce Flockhart
Gordon Haldane