5 May, 2023
April proved to be both a busy and hugely successful month for Badminton England’s pathway players, with medals won across a wide range of different events.
With action at home and abroad, several players will have taken huge confidence after a strong period of action.
YONEX France U17 Open 2023
At the YONEX France U17 Open there were some strong performances, most notably from men’s singles semi-finalist Sonish Hathi.
Unseeded, Hathi eased through to the third round, where he defeated seventh seed Arnaud Boschung 21-14 21-13 to progress.
Hathi then came up against France’s Gaspard Leriche in the last eight, and beat the ninth seed 13-21 21-18 21-10 to reach the semi-final following a battling display.
His campaign came to an end with defeat to second seed Sebastian Pinkowicz in the last four, though Hathi can take plenty of pride in his bronze medal.
Elsewhere, sixth seed James Song reaching the last eight in the men’s singles before tasting defeat to Bartosz Punko.
Song was seeded second alongside Sofie Chong in the mixed doubles, the duo reaching the quarter-final before withdrawing, while two further pairings – Hathi and Maria Mitchell, and Anish Nair and Rajvi Parab – also reached the same stage.
Aarav Sujith and Song reached the last eight of the men’s doubles, while Lucy Brierley and Chong progressed to the same stage of the women’s doubles draw as top seeds.
FZ Forza Alpes International U19 2023
Leona Lee reached two quarter-finals as she led the English charge at the FZ Forza Alpes International U19 in Voiron.
Seeded second in the women’s singles, Lee received a bye in the opening round before making it to the last eight thanks to victories against Anja Rumpold and Margaux Lasis, before a 21-16 22-20 quarter-final defeat to Ratnacha Sompoch.
Lee and Chloe Dennis were seeded fourth in the women’s doubles and progressed to the last eight, while Dennis and Harry Wakefield also reached the same stage in the mixed doubles draw.
Victor Jot
Rajvi Parab claimed the U15 girls’ singles titles during a hugely successful campaign for English players at the VICTOR JOT junior tournament in Edegem-Kontich.
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After a confident start to the tournament, Parab defeated María García in straight games to set up a last eight encounter against fellow English player Yashica Racharla.
Parab prevailed 21-10 21-16 against Racharla, and then defeated Denmark’s Rosa Rasmussen 22-20 21-13 to set up an all-English final versus Martha Ng.
Ng had beaten another English player, Mia Fox, in the last four, meaning that England had already guaranteed three medals by the semi-final stage.
Parab edged a tight opening game in the final and eventually eased her way to victory, sealing a 22-20 21-12 to claim the gold medal.
That was not Parab’s only medal of the week, reaching the final of the mixed doubles alongside Joel Joby before defeat to Rasmussen and Birk Norman.
Kalyan Manoj also impressed, taking home a bronze medal after a run to the last four in the boys’ singles competition.
Manoj overcame Raúl Hernández to reach the third round, before a second straight-games victory versus Santiago Araújo powered him into Round 4.
He then again picked up another impressive win over Belgian Seppe Daemers to reach the last eight, where he battled past Norman 21-8 19-21 21-18.
Manoj’s campaign then came to a close with a three-game loss to Maximilian Kauffmann, though there are huge positives for him to take – with a first international medal secured.
Easter Camp – 11-13th April
A group of U17-U19 players came together during the Easter Holidays for three days of training at the National Badminton Centre.
The main focus of the camp was on the first four shots in doubles, where Badminton England are looking for players to be proactive and dominant in this area wherever possible. The focus was also on thinking independently in order to dominate in this area and be confident enough to try to win quick points and control momentum of matches.
Additionally, the doubles group focused on net skills and defence, with singles players focusing mainly on intensity in rallies, and anticipating and dealing with pressure whilst looking to contain and neutralise their opponents.
The whole group also completed some match play sessions at high intensity across, while the players also completed some testing with our Junior Performance S&C Coach and had a workshop on interview techniques and support for exams.
Discover Squad Camp – Sat 22nd April
The Discover Squad came together as part of a collaboration with the England Para-Badminton Pathway, where Emma Stoner and Isaac Maison joined the group for the day.
The players completed a singles session on neutralising and a doubles session on rotation. There was then an opportunity to play matches in the afternoon.
Junior Programme’s S&C Coach Kathryn Canham also ran a gym session for the group, providing education on what an ideal off court session could look like and there was also a second session in the Performance Parenting Series, run by Working With Parents in Sport’s Gordon MacLelland on the topic of Managing Disappointment.
Progress & Engage Trials (U16-U19 age groups)
Our first set of 2023 National Junior Performance Programme trials for the Engage / Progress age groups took place at the Jubilee Sports Centre in Nottingham at the weekend with around 60 players being invited across the two days.
The days were focused on playing matches and giving each individual plenty of opportunity to show their abilities to the watching Coaches and Support Team, which included members of the National Coaching team, the Performance Director, some experienced coaches from across the network and our Junior Performance S&C Coach.
It was a great couple of days and an exciting opportunity to see a large number of players in action, with everyone working hard. The Performance Programme will now review players during this month and communications will go out in June to all players from these Engage / Progress squad trials.
U15 Quadrangular
The England Team tasted multiple successes in Bangor, Wales over the bank holiday weekend. England won the team event and then took away all five individual event gold and silver medals, with a total haul of 17 medals across all five events.
The team comprised of George Clare, Joel Joby, Kalyan Manoj, Sajan Senthuran, Siddhanth Shirol, Aahna Bhatia, Mia Fox, Katie Hoult, Rajvi Parab and Yashica Racharla.
Again it was Parab who led the way in terms of medal success, claiming girls’ singles gold and doubles gold alongside Bhatia, while she and Joel Joby claimed mixed doubles bronze.
