Gloucestershire Badminton Association

Deep Lunge

Mike Haywood is presented with award by Derek Wood

Mike Haywood has represented Gloucestershire Badminton over 100 times and was presented with a cut glass rose bowl at the 2010 AGM by the newly elected President Derek Wood.

Nicola Gresty continued her successful run in Badminton doubles this season by adding the Hampshire U14 Mixed Doubles title. Even though Nicola and her partner, Ditlev Holm (Surrey), were playing in the age group above, they still managed to clinch gold with a quality display of mixed doubles. Their route to victory was not easy. The pair were drawn against the number 1 seeds from Hampshire (Kelvin Latimer and Melissa Stride) in the box stage. They lost the first game comfortably, but settled down in the second game and forced a third game decider. They gradually applied pressure on the favourites who fought hard, but could not handle the attacking net play from the younger pair. After beating the top seeds, Gresty and Holm confidently took the remaining rubbers and cruised to victory in the final against Paige Butler and Kristian Plender, winning 21-11, 21-11.

Chris Hotchen, current holder of the Gloucestershire Restricted mens singles cup, played a superb match against top Malaysian player Lim Kenn who is touring the UK currently before hoping to carry on round the world. Read all about it...

Nicola Gresty was the County's sole representative at this years English U-13 National Badminton Championships held, here in Gloucestershire, at Leisure@Cheltenham in Pittville last weekend in the end of season finale.

Nicola competed in the singles, doubles and mixed doubles events and was unbeaten on Saturday playing some controlled quality badminton and managed to make it through to all three semi-finals, beating number four seed Alice Torjussen in the quarter final of the singles.

The semi-finals and finals were all played on Sunday and Gresty was up against top seed, Jess Pugh (Shropshire) in the Singles semi-final.

Nicola started confidently but fell behind and ended up losing in two sets. She was seeded number 1 with her partner Ira Banerjee of Northumberland in the girls doubles, and triumphed by beating Pugh and Dawid-Paluch of Lancashire in the final for the gold.

Nicola Gresty partnered Ditlev Holm of Surrey in the mixed doubles sem,i narrowly losing out 21-19 in the first well controlled game, and lost 21-11 in the second.

Her coach, Rebecca Pantanay, said"Nichola had set her sights on reaching the semi-finals and played really well to achieve her goal."

Nicola Gresty ended up with a well-earned gold and two hard-fought bronze medals from the prestigious weekend of competition. Rebecca Pantanay said "Nicola needs to keep her head down and put in more hard work to keep moving forward. She has the desire to win and if she perseveres and keeps developing by putting in the training, she could do well in the future. She is better in the doubles, where she has a natural talent, than in the singles."
Nicola also competed in the U-17 ICT Team despite being only 13. Well done Nicola!

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	Source of information for all Gloucestershire Badminton enthusiasts

Source of information for all Gloucestershire Badminton enthusiasts