SSBU Round Up: 2013 Age group

It was time for the younger players to gather at Wishaw for the SSBU 2013 Age Group event on 23^rd March. It is disappointing that entry for the younger age groups is low but there was still a good day of competition for those entering.

The boys singles had 18 entries, but with one player withdrawing through injury just after the closing date and another ill pulling out the night before and also one no show on the day it was unfortunate that 5 pools had been made for the event. Liam Sinclair (Highland) was the seeded player in the only pool left with 4 players. He had a victory over Nicholas Wong (Lothian) but lost to Sumanth Prakash (G & NS) and Saitej Ganti (Lothian) leaving him to play in the consolation event which he won.

With second seed Ziyang Xiao (Lothian) out through injury the bottom half of the singles A knock-out had no seeded player. Frank Atkins (Midland) took advantage of this to make his way to the final. In the top half of the draw top seed Aarav Sinha beat 3^rd seed Saathvik Karthik Saravanan in the semi-final before bringing Frank’s good run to an end by winning the final 21-11,21-12.

Unfortunately there were only 6 girls for the singles. 2 pools of 3 were played with the top 2 in each pool going through to semi-finals and 3^rd place players playing off for the consolation.

Top seeds Sohpie Mackay (Highland) and Ava Li ( Midland) won their pools although Sophie had to fend off a strong challenge from Samyutha Praburaja winning the pool game 22-20. Samyutha was having a good day as she then played Ava in the semi final winning this match 21-19,21-11. Ava had a busy day planned as she was taking part in a dancing event later in the afternoon.

With permission from the other players her doubles games were played first in quick succession.  She paired up with Anvita Awasthi firstly beating Hanvikha Mannem & Samyutha 21-15,21-8, and then winning a three set game 21-19,14-21,21-18 against Sophie Mackay and Lanarkshire’s Lucie Sneddon to win the doubles event. She only just had time to have the trophy presented before dashing off to her dancing event. Samyutha then had another duel with Sophie to decide the singles winner and this time won the match 21-10,21-13.

The boys doubles was also played as a single pool. Most of the matches were close although none went to 3 sets. Liam was determined to go back to Highland with more than a consolation trophy and paired up with Aarav to win this doubles. Runners up were Saitej Ganti (Lothian) & Sumanth Prakash (G & NS).

Everybody seemed to enjoy the day’s badminton and now there are just 2 events left in the SSBU season – the 2010 Age Group on 20^th April and the primary championships on 4^th May. Entries for both are still open on tournament software.