2 April, 2024
Badminton England soared to team bronze medal at the U17 Six Nations in Sweden.
Led by the strength of Aarav Sujith and Sofie Chong, who made two quarter-final appearances each, the team clinched overall bronze with a handful of athletes reaching the final eight.
The U17 Six Nations is the oldest international badminton tournament for U17s and Chong reached the quarter-finals in the women’s and mixed doubles.
Under 17 Six Nations
Teaming up with Mia Fox, the duo stormed through their round of 16 match to reach the quarter-finals where they faced a tough battle with Denmark’s Athene Lyduch Thornild and Filippa Pedersen and ultimately fell to a 21-14 21-10 defeat.
Chong had already reached the same stage with mixed doubles partner James Song earlier in the day, forcing the second seeds Orphe Queton-Bouissou and Eva Bouville of France to a third game before falling 21-11 15-21 21-14.
Sujith beat Sweden’s Felus Ding and France’s Mady Sow to set up his quarter-final battle with Frederik Hinding of Norway, eventually falling 21-16 21-8.
A similar path fell to the teenager as he paired up with teammate Jaxon Clarke in the men’s doubles.
The two beat Sweden’s Timmy Nilsson and Harry Vaihnigher in the round of 16 but once again faced Hinding in the quarter-final.
The Norwegian, paired with Mikkel Bouet, once again took the spoils 23-21 21-14, despite a roaring first game from the English side.
There were further quarter-final appearances from George Clare, Anish Nair, Martha Ng and Aahna Bhatia.
YONEX German Junior Open
Dillon Chong and David Ng reached the round of 32 at the YONEX German Junior Open in Berlin.
The men’s doubles pair were both knocked out early in their singles and mixed doubles campaigns but came back stronger together.
The duo cruised past Poland’s Igor Skolimowski and Jan Szeszko before losing out to Indonesia 21-7 21-14.
YONEX All England Legacy Match
Badminton England U13 players took part in the Legacy Match at the All England Open Championships in March.
Teams from England, Japan and China featured on the hallowed All England centre court on Finals day for the event that was hosted by YONEX.
Representing England were Nikhil Pulikkottil (captain), Arjun Bhattiprolu, Eden Gough, Aayush Reddy, Etienne Fan, Vedanshi Jain (captain), Mutiara Mandala, Mudra Mayekar, Daya Variangattil and Elsa Mitchell.
England kicked off the event with a closely contested 2-4 loss to Japan, with several matches going down to the wire. The subsequent match against China resulted in an even 3-3 draw.
