Senior badminton singles decided
The Shetland senior badminton singles competition was held on Monday night. With this being scheduled after the open doubles event many of the senior players were feeling the pace and unfortunately three withdrew, leaving top seed Kevin Smith, coach Maurice Haining and five able juniors.
This competition was a knockout and Kevin had no difficulty progressing to the final. There he faced Roy Wood who had defeated Robert Smith 21-19, 22-24, 21-19 in the semi-final.
In the final Roy gave a good account of himself, rallying well, but Kevin was too strong and won 21-9, 21-10. But at only 15 Roy shows great protential.
In the men’s restricted singles (no A county players able to enter) the eight players were in two groups for a round robin event with the top in the group going through to compete in a final.
In group A the honour went to Robert Smith who had maximum points.
In group B it was very close with different players taking sets off others. Roy Wood came top with five points, with his father Brian and Ramsay Hogg close in pursuit with four points each.
Both players started to look tired in the final and this time Robert reversed the result, defeating Roy 21-15, 12-21, 21-15.
In the ladies’ singles Zoe Anderson beat Stephaine Keith 21-14 21-9 to reach the final. She then played Shona Keith and this was hotting up for a good match. But as Zoe played the final shot of the first set, to win 21-18, she injured her achillies tendon and had to go to hospital. All of the badminton players wish her a speedy recovery.
In the ladies’ restricted singles (excluding A county players who played against Orkney last year) Amanda Slater and Stephaine Keith had a marathon match in the final. Stephaine proved too power-ful and won 21-19, 20-22, 21-10.
The cups were presented to the winners and the Robbie Watt Trophy for the best overall performance in the championships was won by Zoe Anderson.
