U13/U17 Midland Junior Report
Report for 20 and 21 January 2024
by Gordon Anderson
Lingyun Xiao U17 Treble
It was a special weekend for Lingyun Xiao who enjoyed treble success in the Midland Junior Championships held at NICC Perth.
The U17 BS SFs saw the top 4 seeds match up. Top seed Lingyun defeated Arnav Saraswat, whilst Lewis Smith (seeded 2) edged out Alfie Martin in a tight 3 setter. In the final, Lingyun took the honours, defeating Lewis in 2 hard fought sets.
Lingyun then paired up with Lewis and progressed smoothly to the Final with a 2 set SF win over Lucas Chin/Callum McWhirter.
In the bottom half of draw, Alfie/Arnav had a terrific battle with Max McCabe/Luke Parkinson, eventually taking the deciding set 21-17. The Final was another good match, but Lingyun/Lewis came out on top in 2 close sets.
In the U17 Mixed group stages, No1 seeds Alfie Martin/Tushara Senthilrajaram topped their group after overcoming Lingyun/Qing Yang Xiao in an incredibly close 3 setter. Alfie/Tushara followed this up to defeat Luke Parkinson/Ingrid Wang in the top half SF.
Lingyun/Qing Yang overcame No2 seeds Lewis Smith/Deepti Vijayakumar in the 2nd SF, a high quality 3 setter which ebbed to and fro, thus setting up a rematch with Alfie/Tushara in the Final.
And this time it would be Lingyun/Qing Yang who took control of the match to win the Final 21-14, 21-17 and complete Lingyun’s treble! Well done!
Earlier, the U17 GS Final saw Tushara Senthilrajaram face Jaagruti Mannem, following their SF wins over Anshita Jaiswal and Shona Brown respectively. The final was another high quality match, with Tushara taking the title 21-16, 21-18.
The U17 GD had been completed on Saturday as a round robin pool. Anshita Jaiswal/Ingrid Wang won all their matches to win the event, with Jaagruti Mannem/Shreya Vargheese as runners-up.
U13 Trebles for Emily Jobson / Yingfan Wang
On Saturday Emily Jobson also completed her treble:
In the U13 GS final Emily beat Akshara Chavin, before pairing up with Akshara to win the U13 GD which was played as a round robin pool. Runners-up in the U13 GD were Highland pairing Josie Columbine / Sophie Mackay.
The U13 Mixed was also played as a round robin, where Emily partnered Yingfan Wang and won all their matches to take the title, with Divyam Goyal/Akshara as runners-up.
This completed a busy day for all U13 girls, where all events were played to completion.
Congratulations to Emily for her success!
On Sunday it was Yingfan’s turn to try and complete his own treble.
In U13 BS top seed Yingfan faced Divyam in the final, following SF wins over Aarav Sinha and Kanishk Tata respectively. In an exciting close match, Yingfan took the prize, although Divyam pushed him close.
Yingfan then partnered Oscar Feng in U13 BD, where he would again face Divyam along with partner Atharv Sharma. This time Yingfan/Oscar proved to be just too strong, winning 21-10, 21-11, to complete Yingfan’s successful weekend.
Well done Yingfan, and special mention to Divyam who was runner-up in all 3 events.
Many thanks to everyone who braved the awful weather conditions and especially those travelling long distances to take part. We hope everyone enjoyed the event.
Thanks as always to BSCO Officials for officiating all the SFs and Finals on Sunday, and to NICC/LiveActive staff for all their help during the weekend.