Young players in action at World Uni Championships
16th December 2004Three players who train at the University of Bath High Performance Badminton Centre were in action at the 8th World University Badminton Championships in Bangkok, Thailand.
Toby Honey, aged 21, won his first match of the men's singles tournament, convincingly beating Somphons Phavanh from Laos in the first round by 15-0, 15-2. But with a place in the quarter-finals at stake, Toby lost to China's Long Lin in the second round 10-15, 8-15.
Nineteen-year-old Rachel Howard, who is a Psychology student at the University of Bath, also won her first round match in the women's draw, beating Japan's Mai Hattori. She recovered from a 5-11 defeat in the first set to win the next two 11-2, 11-7 and book a place in the second round. But Rachel's challenge ended there as she went down 11-1, 11-1 to China's Ting Hu.
Rachel teamed up with University of Bath Coach Education and Sports Performance student Hayley Connor, aged 20, in the women's doubles competition. The pair lost a keenly-contested first round match against Mai Hattori and Noriko Tai from Japan 15-6, 8-15, 4-15.
Rachel, Hayley and Toby were also all in action in the mixed doubles competition. Rachel and partner Stephen Foster progressed to the second round of the draw by beating Canada's Chloe Lennox and Alexandre Tremblay 15-7, 15-8.
But despite winning the first set of their second round match 15-1 over Elena Shimko and Sergey Ivlev, the Russian pair bounced back to take the second and third sets 3-15 and 6-15 to win the tie.
Hayley and her partner Christopher Tonks were beaten 11-15, 15-13, 4-15 by the Indonesian pair Purwati and David Yedija Pohan in the first round of the draw.
Toby Honey and Julie Pike beat Sri Lankans Nadedsha Binduhewa and Thanuja Luiyanage 15-4, 15-0, but were then beaten by Koonchala Voravichitchaikul and Sudkhet Prapakamol from Thailand, who went on to win the mixed doubles competition.