England’s brightest badminton prospects collided on two days of action at the U19 English National Championships in Milton Keynes.
Lisa Curtin was a dominant force in the women’s singles competition, upgrading last year’s bronze to gold.
She didn’t lose a game en route to the final and dropped her first with the gold medal on the line, as second seed Leona Lee won the opening game 21-19.
Curtin came back 21-10 21-13 to wrap up a memorable victory in 22 minutes.
Curtin then combined with Estelle Van Leeuwen to retain her women’s doubles title.
They wrapped up overall victory without dropping a game, beating third seeds Lee and Katherine Arksey 21-14 21-8 in the final.
Curtin said: “I’m feeling really happy. This is our last-ever junior tournament so it’s really nice to finish on a double gold. There was a lot of pressure on me in the singles especially, I was quite nervous in the final and the semi-final.”
Van Leeuwen claimed mixed doubles glory alongside Samuel Jones, proving too much for Jacob Weekes and Susanna Ogden in the final, prevailing 21-5 21-10.
Nadeem Dalvi downed Michael Pang 21-17 21-10 to claim men’s singles honours.
His toughest test came at the semi-final stage when he dropped the second game to fifth seed Blake Hoang but still ran out 21-12 14-21 21-16 winner and reached the final.
Dalvi said: “I’m over the moon. I’m so happy to join a few great names as the U19 men’s singles champion.
“I had some tough matches, particularly the semi-final. I’m not very comfortable playing (Blake) but I was so glad to get through that. In the final, I brought my level. I felt really good on court.”
“I definitely came here trying to win, I was top seed. I definitely felt the pressure as the guy to beat at the tournament. I’m so happy I did that.
“The tournament was brilliantly ran, everything ran on time and the games were flowing nicely. It worked out really well.”
Dalvi was another to double up but fell in the final of the men’s doubles alongside Charlie Castle. They were beaten 21-11 21-16 by top seeds Blake Hoang and Samuel Jones.
Jones said: “I’m super happy to come away with two titles and winning with Blake feels amazing. I played really well all weekend and I’m happy with the medals.”
“We played two good matches on Saturday and showed our level. We managed to win everything in two sets so we’re really happy with how we’ve played. We did really well to get to the final this year and just missed out on winning. There was some pressure being the top pair and the top seeds but we showed we deserved to win.”
Full results from the tournament are available HERE.
