Over 50’s match reports: Norfolk & Suffolk

1/11/15 Away v Norfolk

Team – Martyn Clark, John Mallabar, Martin Smith, Wilfred Janssen, Angela Sharman, Helen Taylor, Carol Salmon, Xin Cheng.

A hard fought game against a strong Norfolk team resulted in a 10-2 home win to Norfolk.

Men’s doubles: Martyn and John, and Wilf and Martin put up a good fight against two strong Norfolk men’s pairs but were unable to convert some close games into a win.

Ladies doubles: Angela and Helen paired up to win one of their games, narrowly missing out 21-19 against the Norfolk 1st ladies pair. Carol and Xin had a similar game to the men’s pairs, putting up a good fight but were unable to gain an advantage.

Mixed Doubles: Three of the four draws went to 3 ends, but we were only able to convert one of these to a win, well done Wilf and Xin.

Final score was a 10-2 home win to Norfolk. All in all we had some good games but were outplayed on the day.

Well played team.

8/11/15 Home v Suffolk

Team – John Pickering, Wilfred Janssen, John Mallabar, Martin Smith, Angela Sharman, Dianne Baker, Helen Taylor, Xin Cheng.

Mens doubles: John P and Wilf had two 3 enders in their mens, beating the Suffolk 2nd pair and losing 21-17 in the 3rd against the 1st pair. John M and Martin had a close win against the Suffolk 2nds and lost to the 1st pair to 14 and 19.

Ladies Doubles: Both of our ladies pairs had close games against the Suffolk 2nd pair but were outplayed by the 1st pair. Angela and Di beat the 2nd pair and Helen and Xin lost a closely fought battle to 19 and 18.

Mixed Doubles: John P and Helen, John M and Di, Martin and Angela, Wilf and Xin. We all had some close games with Wilf and Xin being the only mixed pair to manage 3 ends.

Final Result was a 9-3 away win to Suffolk. Overall a good match played in good spirits, many thanks to all of the team.

Martin Smith
Captain

Cambs Junior Fun Tournament 14 November 2015

CRC was full of U11, U13 and U15 junior badminton players on Saturday for the Cambridgeshire Fun Tournament, held by Cambridgeshire Badminton Association with the generous support of Cambridgeshire Schools Badminton Association.

Congratulations to everyone who played, as there were many close games which were all played in excellent spirits.

The winners were:

U11

Boys Singles: Adam Wang (RU Achira Waduge) / Girls Singles: Carys Leung (RU Phoebe Meikle)

U13

Boys singles: Wing Lun Lim (RU Manula Dharmawardana) / Girls singles: Ruby Spencer (RU Olivia Chan)

U15

Boys singles: Cameron Foo (RU Harry Zhao) / Girls singles: Sophia Abbott (RU Rachel Owen)

U11

Boys doubles: Adam Wang & Achira Waduge (RU Zai & Oliver Winfield)/ Girls doubles: Sophie Biers & Carys Leung (RU Jasmine & Phoebe)

U13

Boys doubles: Wing Lun Lim & Lewis Edmund (RU Zichen He & Manula Dharmawardana)/ Girls doubles: Sophie Biers & Carys Leung (RU Jasmine & Pheobe Meikle)

U15

Boys doubles: Cameron Foo & Harry Zhao (RU Wing Lun Lim & Alec Davis) / Girls doubles: Rachel Owen & Alice Bates (RU Claudia Bazyk & Olivia Chan)

All the results sheets are available in the Gallery section.

Over 50's home v Essex Match Report

Team - Martin Smith, Wilfred Janssen, John Pickering, John Harvey, Angela Sharman, Dianne Baker, Carol Salmon, Xin Cheng.

All games were played in good spirit, with the team giving it their best shot in what was always going to be a tough fixture with Essex, who had already beaten Herts 12-0.

We gave our all but the result was unfortunately a 12-0 defeat to strong Essex team. I think it is safe to say we all had some good games, but were beaten by the stronger team on the day.

Many thanks to the team.

Martin Smith.

Cambs Restricted Weekend 2015: Results

Thomas Li: 2015 Mens Singles Winner

After a very long and very hard weekend of competitive badminton, Cambridgeshire Badminton Association has again hosted an extremely successful County Restricted competition.

In all, seventy three players competed across five disciplines, with plate competitions in four.  After some immense on-court battles, the winners were

• Mens Singles: Thomas Li
• Mens Singles Plate: Stephen Pickering
• Ladies Singles: Jenny Crump
• Mens Doubles: Abu Kaher & Neil Place
• Mens Doubles Plate: James Wilson & Thasprakash Annamale
• Ladies Doubles: Jenny Crump & Katie Morton
• Ladies Doubles Plate: Lily Matthews & Stacey Knoop
• Mixed Doubles: Thomas Li & Natalie Taylor

Photographs of the winners are available in the Gallery.

Complete details of the results can be found on Tournament Software.

Many thanks to everyone who made it such an excellent competition.  Special thanks must go to Neil Place, who managed to compete in all three disciplines as well as performing the Tournament Secretary role and keeping everything running smoothly!

Harry Zhao Enjoys Cambridgeshire U19 Restricted Victories

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Harry Zhao: U19 Singles Winner

Whilst a sad lack of entries in the girls event meant the competition was not played, there were a healthy crop of boys contesting the Cambridgeshire U19 Restricted at Burwell Sports Centre this afternoon.

Split into two round-robin groups, Group B was won by Jordan Huynh with a 100% success rate, and the runner up Cameron Foo only lost to Jordan (21-15). Group A turned into an extremely close competition: while Harry Zhao came top by winning all his matches, it transpired that Jacob Oberholzer and Jake Alsop ended the competition on identical points scores.  This resulted in Jake going through on the head-to-head result (21-16).

In the semi-finals, Jordan slipped into top gear and beat Jake 21-8, while Harry beat his doubles partner Cameron 21-14.

In the final it was Harry who seemed to have the energy and consistency to take the match, seizing runs of points throughout the match and eventually winning 21-13.

Moving onto the doubles, after a round-robin group of five pairs, it was Harry and Cameron on top with a 100% win record who faced the scratch pairing of Jacob Oberholzer and Jake Alsop.

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Cameron Foo and Harry Zhao: U19 Doubles Winners

The final was a gripping, and startling contrasting game of two ends.  Jacob and Jake shocked Harry, Cameron and the onlooking crowd by storming out to a 11-3 lead at the changeover.  However, with careful serving and using their experience and consistency, Harry and Cameron fought back, putting together an impressive run of 14 points to reach 17-11, and eventually win 21-12.

Congratulations to Harry, Cameron, and all the other boys who played the competition.  There were some excellent games, and the competition was played out in good spirits all around.

For more pictures, including the scoresheets, please see the gallery pages.

Cambs O50s v Leicestershire

Team: Angela Sharman, Di Baker, Xin Cheng, Sandra Dennis, John Pickering, John Harvey, Martyn Clark, Martin Smith.

Mens - Martyn and Martin won the only mens game, but John and John had a very close 3 ender against a strong Leics 1st pair, loosing out 21-19 in the third end.

Ladies - Many thanks to Sandra Dennis for standing-in at the 11th hour, due to an injury to Helen Taylor. Angela and Sandra were 14-10 up when Angela had to retire with an injury to her knee/calf. Hence we had to concede their two ladies games. Di and Xin managed to win one of their games 22-20 and 21-18.

Mixed - Due to Angela's injury we conceded the 2nd mixed game. All of the remaining games unfortunately slipped away from us, with John H and Xin managing a 3 ender.

Final result a 10-2 loss, having had to concede 3 rubbers. Many games were closer than the scoreline suggests.

Report by Martin Smith.

Over 50's ICC Weekend Report

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The Cambs over 50s attended the BE ICC weekend tournament on 10/11th January at Lilleshall Hall, Telford.

We played 6 matches over the two days, but after some excellent badminton and some very close games came away with 3 x 4-0 and 2 x 3-1 losses and 1x 2-2 draw (for which we are claiming the moral victory by 7 points!! ) Although it sounds like a bit of a whooping 2 of the 4-0 losses had 2 sets which went to 3 ends and so could have gone either way.

The team seem to have acquired a new mascot "Swanney", in the form of a balloon modelled Swan!! He/she came out to play at the dinner on Saturday night and was the subject of much fun !!!!! More so for some of the team........He, with a little help had some of the opposing team threatening to join us having seen the attention he was attracting (I will leave this to your imagination).

I think I am safe in saying a very good time was had by all, with some very good badminton too.

Team: Angela Sharman, Dianne Baker, Helen Taylor, Xin Cheng, John Harvey, John Pickering, Martyn Clark, Martin Smith (c)

Report by Martin Smith