5 May, 2024
Chloe Birch and Estelle van Leeuwen reached the women’s doubles final at the YONEX Luxembourg Open.
Japan’s Miki Kanehiro and Rui Kiyama came out on top 21-14 21-13 to strike gold after Birch and Van Leeuwen had battled brilliantly to make Sunday’s showpiece.
The pair started their deep run with a comfortable 21-8 21-12 victory over Poland’s Paulina Hankiewicz and Kornelia Marczak before easing past Dutch duo Kelly van Buiten and Kirsten de Wit 21-12 21-10.
A quarter-final against French fourth-seeds Tea Margueritte and Flavie Vallett followed and Birch and Van Leeuwen raised their game in a 21-15 21-16 victory to book a spot in the final four.
There, they slipped behind to Akari Sato and Maya Taguchi of Japan but rallied superbly to edge a nerve-shredding semi-final 11-21 21-19 21-17 thereby guaranteeing a medal.
Elsewhere, Zach Russ and Chua Yue Chern enjoyed a deep run in the men’s doubles.
The pair breezed through qualification and delivered an upset in the round of 16 when knocking out fourth-seeds Eloi Adam and Leo Rossi 21-14 21-17.
Russ and Chua were eventually foiled by Tori Aizawa and Daisuke Sano of Japan 21-11 21-19 in a tightly-contested quarter-final.
Russ was also in mixed doubles action alongside Denmark’s Maria Hojlund Tommerup, advancing to the round of 16 before Japanese duo Kota Ogawa and Misaki Kurashima came from a game down to win 19-21 21-13 21-12.
Ethan Rose impressed in the men’s singles, easing through qualification to enter the main draw.
He came up against fellow qualifier Darshan Pujari of India in the round of 32 and went down 22-20 21-15 to the eventual semi-finalist.
Heng Lin Ngan and Rohan Midha were also in men’s singles action in Luxembourg but fell short during qualification.
