Women players key to badminton win

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32613, 22 May 1971, Page 44

Women players key to badminton win

Provided that its women can reproduce the form they showed in the same game last season, Canterbury should beat Southland at Invercargill today, in the first match of the Wisden Cup inter-provincial badminton championship. 'The Canterbury team includes three of the four women who recorded wins over their counterparts last season, and enabled Canterbury to gain an 11-5 win after the men had struggled against the Southlanders. If Canterbury can win this • match, and the one against Otago in Christchurch on June 19, it will have reached

the national final, as this ' season the competition takes : the form of a round-robin play-off between the two North Island zonal winners and the South Island zonal winner. It is hoped that P. V. Boat- j wood, the former New Zea- j land • junior champion and . former four times provincial' title-holder, who began the season promisingly but was.j eclipsed by several oppon- , ents in the representative ] trials, can recapture his best i ' form. < Boatwood faces perhaps I ' the most difficult task of the ] i Canterbury team in singles ' : play; he will be opposed by the outstanding 21-year-ola, 1 i M. Pascoe, who beat the Can-j : terbury player in the same ; i match last season, 15-10, I litf-12. h

G. Ellis, W. Edgecumbe and D. Yoong—the latter two both new to division I standards—will also face topclass opposition in W. Simpson, E. Kirkland and L. Hamilton. , Canterbury’s leading- woman player. Miss J. Miles, recorded a fine win over the nationally-ranked Mrs L. Roy in last season’s match, and the outcome of their struggle today will undoubtedly have great bearing on the overall result. Misses F. Inglis and G. Hampton, and Miss A. Lawrence, whose hockey commitments have previously kept her out of the team, should prove too strong for their probable opponents, Mesdames D. Southby, F. Thompson, and F. Kingsland. The Canterbury division Il and junior teams will also play Southland at Invercargill, while the division HI team will meet North Otago at Oamaru. ,