U13 U17 Midland Junior Championships Round Ups
The U13/U17 Midland Junior Championships took place at NICC Perth on 4 and 5 March, with 68 players from across Scotland (incl. 1 from Guernsey!) providing two busy days of play.
U17 Age Group
In the U17 age group, Lewis Smith and Lingyun Xiao featured in all three finals with top seed Lingyun coming out on top in the Singles final.
Lewis partnering Abigail Barrie in Mixed, had an impressive SF win over No2 seeds Blair Tait/Iona Muir. The final against No1 seeds Lingyun Xiao and Qing Yang Xiao was a very exciting contest, with Lewis/Abigail just edging it 21-19 in the 3rd set.
The U17 BD Final was another high quality, close 3 setter. Lewis partnering Ewan Stewart justified their top seeding, taking the deciding set 21-19 against Lingyun/Blair Tait (seeded 3/ 4).
Earlier, the top 2 seeds progressed to the U17 GS Final, with Deepti Vijayakumar taking the title in another hard fought 3 set match against Pranavi Singh.
Deepti then paired with Iona Muir to win the U17 GD Final, proving too strong for Abigail Barrie/Pranavi Singh.
U13 Age Group
In the U13 age group Dylan Jia enjoyed treble success.
On Sun afternoon, Dylan firstly overcame Melrick Dsouza in the Singles final, before partnering Melrick in the BD final against Vedant Shukla/Calum Tsang.
The 4 boys played a terrific final, with Dylan/Melrick taking the 3rd set 21-17 in a very close match.
With a smaller girls entry at U13, the Mixed event was played as a Round Robin on Saturday. Dylan paired with Arisha Manir and took the title by winning all their matches, with Calum Tsang/Elona Kennedy as runners-up.
Elona Kennedy (seeded 2) earlier won all 4 singles matches in straight sets to claim the U13 GS title, with Arisha Manir runner-up.
Elona/Arisha then faced Zoe Dixon/Louise Melville in a straight U13 GD Final. Zoe/Louise played well, but Elona/Arisha just proved too strong to each claim their 2nd title of the weekend.
Thanks as always to BSCO Officials for officiating all the SFs and Finals on a busy Sunday schedule. And to NICC/LiveActive staff for all their help during the weekend, including special extended opening hours on Sat afternoon.