THE GIRLS once again led the way for Alveston Juniors Badminton Club as they won more medals than their male club-mates at the final county Restricted Singles event of 2017 at St Nicholas Park Leisure Centre in Warwick.
More than 80 youngsters were in action and, as with the first equivalent tournament earlier in the year, Alveston’s girls outdid the boys in the medal stakes.
Young Keerti Bakthisaran set the Alveston ball rolling with a gold medal in the girls’ U11 event – a tremendous achievement for the nine-year-old who, playing in her first badminton tournament, went through the session unbeaten, including victories over two current Warwickshire county squad players.
“We’ve been nurturing Keerti along with a shorter racket in our Wacky Racquets section whilst she learns the basics and she’s only recently switched to a full length one. Today showed she was ready for that step up,” said a delighted club coach.
In the boys’ U11 event, Michael Rogers had to be content with a bronze medal, having lost 21-18 in the semi-final against eventual winner Sarthak Sanyal from Coventry’s Jubilee club.
The U13 boys’ event was relatively disappointing for the club as only club newcomer Alex Yuan reached the semi-finals, only to go down 21-17 against eventual winner Shri Kishan Premkumar from Solihull.
It was back to the business of winning medals, however, in the girls’ U15 event in which the final was contested by two Alveston players. Unbeaten Hannah Lawton saw off club-mate Amy Dunnakey 21-17 in a closely fought tussle.
The losing semi-finalists were Riya Bhavsar and Ruby Sinclair.
Across the hall, both Joe Maynard and Deva Bakthisaran fell at the quarter-final stage.
The pattern continued in the final events of the day – the U17 age group. Once again, the final was contested by two Alveston players – coincidentally again with a 21-17 scoreline – as Faith Christopherson saw off her Kings High classmate Grace Harvey.
