Younger Players Show Their Talent At Oceania Tournament
The juniors took centre stage in the early parts of the penultimate day of the Oceania badminton tournament at Stadium Southland in Invercargill today and the local players proved they have plenty of talent.
A bonus for the players in their respective singles finals is that they all earn a sport in the World Youth Games in August in Singapore.
The boys singles features Australian Boris Ma, the top seed against Canterbury’s Asher Richardson. Ma accounted for Waitakere’s Luke Charlesworth in straight games in his semi, whereas Richardson was only a point off the maximum score in badminton as his match was 21-12 15-21 and then 29-27 in the final game against Australian second seed Ashwant Gobinathan.
Richardson is also in the men’s doubles final where he has teamed with fellow Cantab, William Chen. They will face Gobinathan and Ma in the final.
The women’s title match will be between Auckland’s Victoria Cheng, the second seed and top seed Tara Pilven from Australia. Pilven beat North Harbour’s Anona Pak in her semi while Cheng defeated Louise Ma.
In the women’s doubles final Anona and Aviva Pak will play fellow Kiwis Mary O’Connor and Madeline Stapleton with the mixed final being played out between Charlesworth and O’Connor versus Gobinathan and Ma.
The junior finals will be played on Saturday afternoon followed by the Oceania Championships finals. In doubles quarterfinal action the top seeded pairings all made the semifinals as expected. Mixed No1 seeds Henry Tam and Donna Haliday play Aussies Chad Whitehead and Leanne Choo while second seed James Eunson and Stephanie Cheng have the tough task of playing Glenn Warfe and Kate Wilson-Smith.
One women’s doubles semifinal will feature top seeds Haliday and Danielle Barry against Wilson-Smith and Choo while the men’s doubles semifinal lineup has Oliver Leydon-Davis and Tam against James Patterson and Brent Miller in an all-Kiwi match. The other semi has two Australian pairs – Warfe and Ross Smith playing Saliya Gunaratne and Whitehead.
Results:
Oceania Championships mixed quarterfinals;
(New Zealand unless noted)
(1)Henry Tam/Donna Haliday bt Brock Matheson/Amanda Brown 21-9 21-9, Chad Whitehead/Leanne Choo bt Evan Lee/Victoria Cheng 21-9 21-7, James Eunson/Stephanie Cheng bt Luke Charlesworth/Mary O’Connor 21-13 16-21 21-16, Glenn Warfe/Kate Wilson-Smith(Australia) bt (2)Joe Wu/Danielle Barry 21-18 21-18.
Men’s doubles quarterfinals;
James Paterson/Brent Miller bt Sebastien Arias/Mar Antoine Desaymoz(New Caledonia) 21-15 16-21 21-16, (2)Saliya Gunaratne/Chad Whitehead(Australia) bt Cham Chen/Toby Wong(Australia) 21-13 21-13, (1)Oliver Leydon-Davis/Henry Tam bt William Chen/Asher Richardson 21-7 21-10, Ross Smith/Glenn Warfe(Australia) bt Evan Lee/Brock Matheson 21-11 21-12.
Women’s doubles quarterfinals;
(1)Danielle Barry/Donna Haliday bt Buddhima Fernando/Melinda Sun(Australia) 21-7 21-5, Leanne Choo/Kate Wilson-Smith(Australia) bt Emma Chapple/Emma Rodgers 21-4 21-12.
Results;
Oceania Junior Championships:
(New Zealand unless noted)
Junior men’s singles semifinals;
(1)Boris Ma(Australia) bt Luke Charlesworth 21-15 21-14, (4)Asher Richardson bt (2)Ashwant Gobinathan(Australia) 21-12 15-21 29-27
Junior women’s singles semifinals;
(1)Tara Pilven(Australia) bt (4)Anona Pak 21-12 21-17, (2)Victoria Cheng bt (3)Louise Ma(Australia) 21-19 21-18.
Junior women’s doubles semifinals;
Anona Pak/Aviva Pak bt (1)Louise Ma/Tara Pilven(Australia0 11-21 21-14 21-18, (2)Mary O’Connor/Madeline Stapleton bt Aberaami Thananjeyan/Sarah Wong(Australia) 21-15 21-13
Junior men’s doubles semifinals;
(2)William Chen/Asher Richardson bt Seng Low/Mitchell Wheller(Australia) 21-17 21-12, (1)Ashwant Gobinathan/Boris Ma(Australia) bt Josh Curry/Jonathan Curtin 21-18 21-9.
Junior mixed semifinals;
(1)Luke Charlesworth/Mary O’Connor bt Maika Phillips/Anona Pak 21-10 21-12, (3)Ashwant Gobinathan/Louisa Ma(Australia) bt William Chen/Susannah Leydon-Davis 21-14 21-17