Title Trebles for Meldrum, Brooks and Muir at U15/19 National Junior Badminton Championships
Angus Meldrum, Abbie Brooks and Iona Muir each won a hat-trick of titles at the last national event of the year, the U15/19 National Junior Championships, held on 4 & 5 December at the Sir Craig Reedie Centre in Glasgow.
In the under 19 events Meldrum and Brooks rounded off their trebles with a dominant mixed doubles win over second seeds Lewis Hart and Jodie Black.
The top seeds won 21-17 21-13 in the last match of the day to finish off a fantastic weekend of badminton.
Earlier, Meldrum had justified his status as boys’ singles top seed when he came from a set behind to beat Matthew Waring 24-26 21-14 21-11 while Brooks’ singles win was more straightforward – a 21-12 21-9 win over Lindsey Ireland.
Joint 3/4 seeds Meldrum and Anthony McGuire won the boys’ doubles, beating second seeds Hart and Isaac Weir 21-13 21-19 and in what was arguably the best match of the weekend top seeds Brooks and Ireland won an outstanding girls’ doubles, coming from a set down to beat unseeded youngsters Katrina Chan and Ishbel McCallister 18-21 22-20 23-21.
Iona Muir dominated the under 15 girls’ singles, beating second seed Deepti Vijayakumar in the final to win the title without dropping a set.
And Muir and Vijayakumar teamed up to take the girls’ doubles title, beating Lanna Rose Campbell and Qing Yang Xiao in the final.
But there was disappointment for Lingyun Xiao who retired from the boys’ singles final when trailing 14-7, handing Ewan Stewart the win.
It would not be the way Stewart would have chosen to claim the title but he had scored some good wins to get to the final including a semi-final victory over second seed Lewis Smith, while Xiao had toppled top seed Blair Tait and 3/4 seed Tushar Senthilrajaram on his way to the final.
Unfortunately Xiao couldn’t shake off his back injury and also had to retire from the boys’ and mixed doubles finals, handing Stewart his second title of the day along with partner Smith in boys’ doubles while Blair Tait and Muir took the honours in the mixed.
That rounded off a title treble for Muir, albeit in unwelcome circumstances.
Since the resumption of badminton activity in the summer Badminton Scotland has staged the U13/17 National Juniors, National Disability Championships and Yonex National Senior Championships in August; the Under 15 Quadrangular, Senior Inter Group and National Masters Championships in October; the U15/18 Restricted Inter Group and the Scottish Open in November and now the U15/19 National Junior Championships in December.
It amounts to the equivalent of an entire season of National and International events in the space of four months, delivered in exceptionally challenging circumstances, and Badminton Scotland could not have done this without the commitment, expertise and support of our many volunteers and officials.
We would like to pay tribute to everyone who has contributed to this effort.