Cornwall’s badminton first team got off to a fantastic start at the weekend with a convincing win over Somerset in the national badminton league. The team travelled up to Crewkerne, Somerset and before a large crowd produced a sensational 9 – 6 win.
After the two men’s and ladies singles the Duchy found themselves 3 – 1 up with a notable performance from Jo Philp who beat the Somerset restricted champion Amy Redaway in straight sets.
Convincing performances from the Cornish men’s doubles pairs of Kelvin Edwards and Nick Phelps, Guy Michell and Tom Lyle escalated the score line even further to 7 – 1. This was much needed as the Somerset ladies played extremely well to take all the ladies doubles games, despite strong resistance from Cornwall’s Claire Whitmore and Jan Santillo who took the Somerset first pair right to the wire before losing in the third end. Claire Whitmore remarked “Having losing the first end we changed tactics and snatched the second, but the Somerset pair just had the last say.” It was a brave effort but the score line read 7 - 5 going into the mixed.
Cornwall’s recent mixed training held them in good stead with the Duchy taking two out of the three mixed. Playing at the number one slot with partner Kelvin Edwards, Bron Wotton the Cornwall mixed champion was very satisfied with her performance. “We never let them into the game; we kept on attacking and broke down their defences”.
Cornwall’s next match is another away fixture against Oxford on Sunday 18th October.
