SSBU 2012 Age Group: Round Up
By Hugh Ainsley
The first SSBU tournament for 2024 was for the younger 2012 Age Group. There were 31 players in total for this event at Wishaw.
With 17 players in the boys singles there were 5 pools leading up to the knock-out events. There were no surprise results in the pools with all seeded players qualifying safely for the A knock out.
The first three set match was in the first round of the knock-out with Atharv Sharma (West) putting out the seeded Aaditya Shah 18-21,21-15,21-11. This gave him a quarter final tie against Ziyang Xiao (Lothian) where he found Ziyang a little too strong for him losing 21-11,21-16.
In one of the other quarter finals Aarav Sinha (North East) had to fight hard to defeat his doubles partner Aayush Nagdeve 21-23,21-13,21-11.
Eventually the final was between the 2 top seeds Yinfan Wang (Lothian) and Divyam Goyal (G&NS) with Yingfan winning with a score of 21-14,21-9.
The girls singles had 10 entries and there were 3 pools. Pool C proved to be the toughest with 2 seeded players Ava Li (Midland) and Annika Sinha (North East). The third member of this pool was Josie Columbine from Highland who beat Ava 21-12 leaving Ava in the B knock-out.
The Highland players were playing well, Sophie Sinclair had finished 3rd in pool B but went on to win the B event by defeating Ava in the semi-final. Josie lost her quarter final in the A knock-out to Lothian’s Anvita Awasthi but in the end the final was between the two top seeds Emily Jobson (Lothian) and Akshara Chavan (G&NS) with Emily winning with a score of 24-22, 21-16.
There were 7 pairs in the boys doubles but no surprises here with the final between the two top seeds Yingfan & Ziyang (Lothian) and Aayush & Aarav (North East) The Lothian pair had a fairly quick victory here winning 21-8 21-8 in 19 minutes.
With 4 pairs in girls doubles, there was just a pool with no knock-out. The Highland girls were not playing together with Josie playing with Ava and Sophie McKay pairing with Lanarkshire’s Lucie Sneddon.
When these 2 pairs met it was very close with Josie and Ava winning 22-20 24-22. This secured them the runners up spot with Akshara & Emily winning the event by winning all matches in straight sets.
Everyone seemed to enjoy the event and the organisers are now getting ready for the 2006 and 2009 events next weekend.