Turkish Para International Championships-24th-30th March 2019 – Kemer, Turkey

Badminton Ulster continued their preparation towards European, World and Paralympic success with the continued support from both Sporting Winners (Sport Northern Ireland) and the Irish Sports Council (Athlete Carding) contributing provincially and nationally to athletes with Paralympic potential.

Niall McVeigh, Andrew Moorcroft and Chris Stewart travelled to Turkey to compete in the first of the Paralympic qualifying events taking place in Kemer, Turkey.

Niall and Andrew were both competing in SS6 Mens Singles and both drawn in challenging groups featuring leading players from China, England, India and Russia.

In Men’s Singles Niall McVeigh opened his group with a win against Russia’s Alexander Mekhdiev with Andrew Moorcroft facing World No.1 Jack Shepherd and despite heartening play couldn’t create enough strong play to trouble Great Britain’s best men’s singles player.

In the second group match Niall came up against Indian number 1 Nagar Krishna and struggled to fully get into the match with the eventual tournament runner up capitalising on McVeigh’s shortage of tournament match play winning in 2 sets. Next up in the group for Moorcroft was the Chinese number 1 Luo Guangliang and despite some very encouraging winners and good net play from the young Ulsterman the Chinese number 1 proved more powerful and decisive with his play winning comfortably in 2 sets.

Meanwhile Chris Stewart competed in WH 2 class Mens singles with intense matches against some leading players from Italy and Japan displaying real improvement in his singles play with some personal best performances and pushing the Italian number 1 in a well contested singles match.This was followed up with Mens Doubles, partnering Nurel Hossain Khan from India with soild performances against world class pairs from China and England and despite losing they both gained some real world class experience losing to the eventual Mens Doubles champions from China Mai Jianpeng and Qu Zimo.

After qualifying from his group Niall would face 2015 World Champion and Malaysian number 1 Didin Taresoh.The game proved to be a very closely fought match with Niall winning a tight first set 21-18 and although leading 12-6 in the second set the cool Malaysian played a smarter game closing the deficiet and march to a 21-14 second set win.

The decider was a real test for both and swung to and fro with each other leading and coming back. In the end McVeigh was pipped 17-21 with the Malaysian gaining the advantage from some decisive overhead finishing.

The game had the para crowd on their feet only to end in disappointment for the Irish number one.

This brought the tournament to a close for the players with much thought for the Paralympic qualifying that lies ahead.

The players were supported during the event by Les Dewart Para Performance Coach (Ulster Badminton), Kevin McGuigan Performance Analyst (Sport Northern Ireland Sports Institute) and Lorcan Magee Physiotherapist (Sport Northern Ireland Sports Institute).

Next event for the Team will be the Canadian Para International being held in Ottawa 6th-12th May 2019.

 For full results click here