Mariana reigns in Spain
27th May 2009TeamBath badminton player Mariana Agathangelou scored one of the biggest successes of her career to date by winning the Spanish Open mixed doubles title partnering Robin Middleton.
The University of Bath Coach Education and Sports Development student and her partner collected the title by comfortably beating India’s Arun Vishnu and Aparna Balan 21-16, 21-15 in the final.
The unseeded pair went through the tournament in Madrid without losing a single game.
They had already created a surprise by beating number two seeds Dmytro Zavadskyy and Mariya Diptan from Ukraine 21-8, 21-15 in the second round of the competition.
They then beat Danish and Austrian opposition en route to meeting the Indian pairing in the final.
Sunday’s final win was particularly satisfying for Agathangelou, who had lost to Balan and her women’s doubles partner Shruti Kurian in the final of that competition the previous day.
Agathangelou and her partner, Heather Olver – a former TeamBath player and University of Bath Coach Education and Sports Development graduate – went down 13-21, 19-21 in the women’s doubles final.