SSBU 2015 Age Group – 21/03/26

30 youngsters gathered at Wishaw Sports Centre on Saturday 21st March for the 2025 Age Group event.

In the boys singles there were 18 entries but top seed Daniel Soflano had to pull out a few days before the event after sustaining an injury at school. There were 5 pools and Lothian’s Akilan Valanraj took advantage of his 5th seeded position to win pool E. Second seed Vivaan Pritam took 3 sets to beat Kevin Xu in the quarter final and had another 3 set match to beat Casey Brown in the semi-final. Akilan had a tight quarter final against Arsh Arora managing to win in 2 sets 21-13,22-20. He then defeated Euan Gillies in the semi-final setting up a final with Vivaan. Akilan was on good form taking the first game 21-13 but Vivaan fought back to take the second 21-15, The third game was close until the change of ends but then Akilan came through strongly to take the match 21-12.

There were 12 girls in the girls singles and Glasgow/North Strathclyde player Niamh Kerr played well to finish second in her pool beating seeded Maggie Parthibhan 21-12. In the knock-out she put up a good fight against Cumbria’s Gabriella Galloni-Wilkinson losing 23-21,21-19. The top 2 seeds however reached the final with Arisha Murkute beating Ella Luo 21-11,21-9.

Both doubles events were just one pool – 5 pairs in the boys and 4 in the girls. The boys event went exactly as planned with no 3 set matches and the top 2 pairs playing for first place in the last round. Vivaan took a second runners up spot as he partnered Casey Brown, the pair losing out to top seeds Kevin Xu and Advik Abhilash – the score in this match was close 21-18,21-19. The girls doubles also went as planned with the 2 singles finalists being top seeds. The second seeded pair were a scratch pairing where Gabriella paired up with Niamh. They played well together but weren’t quite strong enough to beat the top seeds losing 21-15,21-15 in the final game.

The SSBU organisers have a short break now with the next event being the 2012 Age Group on 25th April.