SDBA Championships Day 2 - Rainbow's find their pot of gold while Scott and Summons each seal second title
The second day was all about the Mixed doubles with the Championships and Lower division tournaments taking place
The focus of the second day of the SDBA end of season Championships was all about mixed doubles. There were five pairings in the Mixed Doubles Championships and eleven in the Lower Mixed doubles tournament.
Mixed Doubles Championship
With just five entries for the Championships, it was played as one group with best of three games to 21 points. Clare and Nathan Burrell finished in fifth place. They were unable to claim a rubber but did take Holly Hoswell-Sims and Jay Clark to three games. They won the first 21-19 before losing out 21-7, 21-13.
Clare Roberts and Isaac Pearson were in fourth spot after claiming one rubber. They beat Nathan and Clare in straight games and pushed Claire Page and Fraser Bradshaw to three games. Clare and Isaac took the first 21-18 before their opponents responded to win 21-16, 21-12.
Claire and Fraser claimed third spot after winning two rubbers, both against the pairings that finished below them. They were also narrowly edged out in three by Holly and Jay, losing 21-18 in the third. Plus, their only straight games loss was 21-20, 21-19 against Lee Scott and Hannah Summons.
Holly and Jay were runners-up in the end. They won three of the four rubbers, with two of them going all the way to three games. However, they couldn’t stop Hannah and Lee. They won all four rubbers without dropping a game. They were pushed the closest by Claire and Fraser but held their nerve to become Mixed Doubles Championship winners.
Mixed Doubles Lower Divisions
The Lower Division tournament was handicapped and divided into a group of six and a group of five, playing two games to 21 points. Group A was the group of six and Abi Campbell and Jamie Lammas (+4) won eight of the ten games available to top the group. One of the pairings they dropped a game to was Tim and Hannah Rainbow (+1) and they finished in second as they claimed seven games in total. Heidi Paine and Gavin Lewis (+1) narrowly missed out on getting out of the group as they won six rubbers. Wanitchaya Bolton and Ahsan Rohman (-11) and Jo Howard-Simpson and Gary Rose (+5) finished level on four games won each but Jo and Gary picked up more points so finished in fourth. Val Jobson and William Chan (+9) finished in sixth as they picked up one game.
In Group B, Farnaz Siddiq and Omprakash Dash (-4) won seven out of eight games to finish in first place. They were closely followed by Andrew Millham and Debbie Zekai (+5) on six games, the only two they lost being against Farnaz and Omprakash. Sanaa and Jinu Jacob (+1) were the only pairing to take a game off Farnaz and Omprakash but they won just four games in total so finished in third. Corinne Telling and Humaid Ghori (-1) claimed two games to finish in fourth place, just ahead of Jill Beaver and Joe Aguinaldo (+2) who won just one game.
Group A winners Abi and Jamie met group B runners-up Debbie and Andrew in the first semi final. There was only one point to separate the pairings in handicaps which led to two close games as a result. Debbie and Andrew though were able to take advantage of the extra point they had and won 21-17, 21-19 to reach the final.
The other semi final saw Group B winners Farnaz and Omprakash play Hannah and Tim. A five point lead here for Hannah and Tim proved crucial in the first which they won 21-14. The second was much closer and went down to the final point but Hannah and Tim took it to win 21-20 and progress to the final.
Despite both being runners-up in their groups, Debbie and Andrew and Hannah and Tim had reached the final. Debbie and Andrew had a four point advantage in the handicaps but that didn’t affect Hannah and Tim in the first as they moved in front with a 21-15 win. The second game saw momentum swing back the other way and Debbie and Andrew forced a decider after winning 21-16. The final game was extremely close as both pairings pushed for the victory but Hannah and Tim edged it 21-19 to become champions, and conclude an excellent weekend of badminton.
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