Callum Hemming Ethan van Leeuwen Polish IS 2023 1200

24 September, 2023

Callum Hemming topped the podium in the men’s and mixed doubles at the Polish International Series, partnering a Van Leeuwen sibling in each.

Alongside Estelle van Leeuwen, Hemming won the mixed doubles final in just 28 minutes, needing just one minute more to take the men’s doubles title with Ethan van Leeuwen.

Three other English shuttlers reached finals, with Freya Redfearn claiming women’s singles silver as Abbygael Harris and Annie Lado lost out in the women’s doubles showpiece.

In the mixed doubles, Hemming and van Leeuwen knocked out their compatriots in the round of 16, defeating Alex Green and Lizzie Tolman 21-16 21-12.

The duo then beat another English pairing as they battled to a 21-16 23-21 win over Brandon Yap and Harris.

Also losing at the quarter-final stage were Samuel Jones and Sian Kelly, who lost a decider to Kornelia Marczak and Robert
Cybulski, going down 21-17 20-22 14-21.

Van Leeuwen and Hemming then avoided Estelle’s brother Ethan in the semi-finals, as he and Annie Lado played Melker Bexell and Tilda Sjoo of Sweden, narrowly losing 18-21 23-25.

Estelle got revenge for her sibling in the final as she and Hemming defeated Bexell and Sjoo comfortably, winning 21-14 21-13, quickly opening up leads in both games as they stormed to the title.

Earlier in the day, Hemming had tasted victory with Ethan van Leeuwen in the men’s doubles, the second seeds not dropping a set on their way to the gold medal.

After a bye in the first round, they beat Andy Buijk and Dyon van Wijlick 21-13 21-14 before knocking out home hopes Jakub Melanuiuk and Wiktor Trecki.

Green and Yap also made it to the last eight in the men’s doubles but could not get past Poland’s Milosz Bochat and Pawel Smilowski on home soil in a three-game thriller.

Hemming and Van Leeuwen then met Bochat and Smilowski in the final and were behind for only the opening exchanges of the match before pulling away to win the final 21-16 21-12.

Freya Redfearn knocked out three seeds en route to the women’s singles final, defeating third seed Daniella Gonda of Hungary 20-22 21-15 21-16 in the second round.

She then met Anna Tatranova of France, winning 21-8 21-18 before knocking out sixth seed Heli Neiman in straight games to set up a final with Japan’s Sorano Yoshikawa.

After going down 21-12 in the first game, Redfearn fought back to have game point in the second before Yoshikawa responded to take the gold with a 22-20 win.

Top seeds Harris and Lado fell at the final hurdle as they lost 16-21 10-21 to Bengisu Ercetin and Nazlıcan Inci of Turkey.

Harris and Lado had fought back from a game down in the quarterfinals before surging to the final but were not able to beat Ercetin and Inci, who had also defeated Lizzie Tolman and Estelle van Leeuwen in the semi-finals.

Harry Huang made it the furthest of the English shuttlers in the men’s singles, reaching the quarter-finals.
Huang fought hard against eventual champion Andi Fadel Muhammad of Indonesia, who took the last eight tie 21-17 21-18.

Nadeem Dalvi was promoted from the qualifiers to make the men’s singles round of 32 but fell to Israel’s Daniil Dubovenko 9-21 12-21 while Zack Bobrowski missed out in the qualification rounds as Sweden’s Richard Kuhl took a 21-16 21-13 victory.

Players will now head to Zagreb for the Croatian International Future Series which begins on 28 September.

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