BADMINTON: Local stars heading for Spain

This week the Pabellon Municipal Alcudia plays host to the Spanish Para-Badminton International in Majorca with local players confident that they can be returning home with a few medals with Niall McVeigh in particular hoping to improve on his bronze in the 2015 competition.

Last year in the Irish Para Badminton International, when the Antrim Forum hosted the prestigious event, McVeigh was runner-up the Men’s Singles to Didin Taresoh after knocking out England’s Jack Shepherd 24-22 in the deciding set.

As usual the local players will face very stiff competition from a top class entry with England’s Krystem Coombs, Andrew Martin and Shepherd likely to have a say in the final stages while in the SS6 Men’s Doubles McVeigh will be teaming up with Chun Yim Wong (Hong Kong).

Back in April 2015 McVeigh reached the semi-final of the singles in Spain, losing out to the eventual champion Coombs in three sets and was runner-up to Coombs in the final of the European Para-Badminton Championships in the Netherlands so he is looking forward with a great deal of confidence to getting back onto the winners’ podium in Spain.

Andrew Moorcroft is also in the draw for the Men’s Singles SS6 and will be keen to see his own progress over the past year.

When Antrim hosted, last year Moorcroft teamed up with his Alpha team-mate, Emma Farnham, and they were runners-up in the SS6 Mixed Doubles Exhibition, narrowly losing out to English pair Andrew Martin and Rachel Choong having knocked out Paul and Randika Doling.

Last November in the European Championships Emma and Andrew took the eventual champions Andrew Martin and Rachel Choong (England) to three sets in the round robin group stage of the mixed doubles which was certainly a morale boosting performance.

Emma Farnham will once again be teaming up once again with Maria Bartusz (Poland) in the doubles and they could well cause an upset.

Laura Lee Jenkins, in the Women’s Singles Wheelchair 1 class in the Irish Para Badminton International in Antrim, could hardly have wished for a more difficult draw meeting the No. 4 seed, Elke Rongen, in her second group stage match after a 21-17 21-9 victory over Heidi Manninen. Partnering Scotland’s Fiona Christie in the Doubles, she also faced top seeds Sonja Haesler and Karin Suter-Erath which highlights the importance of the draw.

Chris Stewart will be partnering Laura in the Mixed Doubles and there is a very strong entry for this class.

It goes without stating the obvious that Stephen Halpin is also in a very competitive Mens Singles with an entry of 25 but in the past he has certainly shown he can compete at this level while Chris Stewart also finds the same strong competition in the Men’s Singles WH1 classification with 22 entries.

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