Canterbury's Richardson Leads

The New Zealand under-19 badminton team has won the Oceania Junior Championships in Suva, Fiji. Despite distractions from the Christchurch earthquake the New Zealand (1) side defeated Australia (1) 4-1 to gain the upper hand going into the individual Oceania Championships tournament .

The opening win went to Evan Lee(Auckland) and Waitakere’s Mary O’Connor in 45 minutes in three games over Matt Chau and Louisa Ma. The Kiwis dropped the women’s singles in straight games as Victoria Cheng lost to Tara Pilven.

In the men’s singles Christchurch player Asher Richardson ignored the events in his home city to score a dominant 21-11 21-19 victory over Brendon Tieu in just 28 minutes to give his team a 2-1 lead going into the women’s doubles where O’Connor and Waikato’s Madeleine Stapleton took 50 minutes to subdue Pilven and Verdet Kessler in three games to give their side an unassailable 3-1 lead.

The final match saw Richardson team up with Lee to score a three game win over their Australian opponents and a 4-1 overall score.

Richardson will now be the top seed in the individual Oceania Championships which start on Wednesday and run until the finals on Saturday.

Result: Oceania under-19 Badminton teams final.
New Zealand (1) 4 Australia (1) 1
(New Zealand names first)
Mixed: Evan Lee/Mary O’Connor bt Matt Chau/Louise Ma 21-15 14-21 21-18,
Women’s singles: Victoria Cheng lt Tara Pilven 12-21 19-21,
Men’s singles: Asher Richardson bt Brendon Tieu 21-11 21-19,
Women’s doubles: Mary O’Connor/Madeleine Stapleton bt Tara Pilven/Verdet Kessler 21-15 18-21 21-18,
Men’s doubles: Evan Lee/Asher Richardson bt Matt Chau/Sawan Serasinghe 21-18 16-21 21-19