Easy badminton win for England

Press, 9 July 1983, Page 8

Easy badminton win for England

England’s touring under 23 badminton team convincingly hammered Canterbury, 10-0, at the Skellerup Hall last evening, the same margin by which it crushed Wellington a night earlier. The English players were too strong in their all-round play, made better use of their scoring opportunities and showed some delightful touches at the net.' However, Canterbury’s players produced plenty of commitment and although the scores were very decisive, several matches offered the crowd entertaining rallies. None did better in the singles matches than Prasanna Gulasekharam, at No. 2, against the fifth-ranked Englishman, Andy Goode. Prasanna led in the second set, 9-6, and had a glimmer of hope of forcing a deciding set, before Goode stepped up the pressure to cruise through, 15-12.

Darren Hall, the outstanding English prospect, was too strong for Peter Whiting, as were Gill Clark and Wendy Massam in the women’s singles against Alison Ross and Jane Clarke respectively. However, both Canterbury girls led, 3-0, in the first set before going down to the harderhitting English women. The six doubles matches all provided reasonable entertain-

ment, especially the two mixed contests. In Darryl Roebuck, England have a sharp, incisive doubles player, and he typified the team’s ability to quickly punish any loose shot-making from Canterbury. Geoff Miller and Alison Ross fought grittily against Roebuck and Gillian Gowers, and indeed the English pair had most of the luck going, four times in the second set hitting the top of the net with shuttles and having them drop over on Canterbury’s side. England will meet a South Island combination in Dunedin today, and have three more fixtures in the North Island. Results (England names first):— Singles: D. Hall beat P. Whiting, 15-7, 15-7; A. Goode beat P. Gulasekharam, 15-8, 15-12; G. Clark beat A. Ross, 11-6, 11-5; W. Massam beat J. Clarke, 11-7, 11-1. Doubles: D. Roebuck and R. Outterside beat Whiting and G. Miller, 15-2, 15-6; Goode and Hall beat G. Sercombe and S. Tetai, 15-5, 15-7; Clark and F. Elliott beat Ross and Clarke, 15-4, 15-1; G. Gowers and Massam beat R. Stanton and D. Barrett, 15-2, 15-3. Mixed doubles: Roebuck and Gowers beat Miller and Ross, 15-6, 15-3; Outterside and Elliott beat Sercombe and Clarke, 15-3, 15-3.