Two titles each for Matthew Cheung & Jeffrey Rong

Matthew Cheung was the top seed for the U15 Boys singles and was true to his ranking reaching the final where he was up against 3/4 seed Vincent Pontanosa. Matthew had a great start to the final opening up a big lead at the start of the first set and continued this form taking it 21-13. The send set was a closer game but again Matthew produced some great badminton in the latter stages of the game to take it 21-16.

Matthew & Vincent teamed up for the Boys doubles and the strong partnership had a comfortable route to the final where they faced Scott Guildea & Ben Lawlor. The Ulster/Leinster combination were too strong for their opponents taking the title 21-10, 21-12.

A great tournament for Matthew, who has progressed up the Ulster Badminton Performance pathway into the Emerging Performance Squad, and good preparation for the upcoming U15 Irish Nationals.

There were also a number of other good performance throughout the tournament. Stuart McCollum & Lucy Xu reached the final of the U15 Mixed Doubles but lost out the Vincent Pontanosa & Lucy O’Reilly. There was a semi final spot for Jason Ferguson & Chloe Woods losing out to eventual winner Vincent & Lucy.  Lucy Xu also reached the final of the girls Doubles with partner Laura Comer. Laura also reached the semi final of the girls singles just losing in 3 sets against Siofra Flynn. Stuart McCollum also had a good run in the Boys singles but lost out to Vincent Pontanosa.

Next up for the U15’s is the Irish Nationals 3-4th February!

Jeffery Rong (Alpha) did not drop a set en-route to the U11 Boys singles final were he faced Andrew Hassett from Whitehall Road BC. The first set was a close affair up to the mid game interval before Jeffery took control of the set taking it 21-16. The second followed the same path as the first set with it being a close up to the interval but Jeffrey again proved strong in the latter stages taking the set 21-14 and the Boys singles title.

Jeffery, who recently moved into the Ulster Badminton Lisburn Raw Performance Squad, teamed up with Andrew Hassett for the boys doubles and proved a very strong combination reaching the final and taking the title 21-5, 21-5 against Robert Cowman & Adhithyan Gopinath.

Great stuff from Jeffery!