Different incentives for top seeds

Press, 1 September 1986, Page 24

Different incentives for top seeds

By DAVID LEGGAT Graeme Robson and Toni Whittaker, international and provincial team-mates, will have different incentives but the same goal when the New Zealand badminton j championships begin at the Skellerup Hall tomorrow afternoon.

The pair are top seeds for the open singles events at the P.D.L. Industries-sponsored championships. For Whittaker, it will be a case of defending the title she won for the first time at Hastings last year. But Robson will be seeking to regain the title he won for three consecutive years, until 1985, when toe Commonwealth Games representative at Edinburgh, Kerrin Harrison, won the event for the first time.

Only half of the 20 players to gain national rankings for 1985 will be competing at the championships, which are being held in Christchurch for the first time since 1980.

Robson, whose father, Jeff, is with Richard Purser, New Zealand’s . most successful badminton player, with nine singles crowns each, should

be relatively untroubled until he reaches the semi-finals, where most likely his opponent will be the fourth-ranked Auckland player, Ryan Whittle. The second seed is Glen Stewart, of Auckland. Stewart was a late addition to the New Zealand Commonwealth Games team, but performed outstandingly at Edinburgh, winning a bronze medal in the men’s doubles with Harrison, and progressing furthest of the New Zealanders in the singles. A fortnight ago, Robson gained an important psycho-, logical advantage when be beat Stewart, 17-14, 15-5, in the final of the North Island championships. In a field of 21 for the women’s open singles, Whittaker’s strongest challenge is sure to come from the second seed, Linda Persson, assuming both players reach the final. Persson won the national title two years ago, before being involved in a serious motor accident which effectively put her out of all badminton until this year. There are some players who could cause problems for the top two in earlier rounds,

most notably the fourth seed, Sandra Henare, the young Nicole Vipond, of Waitemata, who has been placed third, and the Über Cup representative, Julie Stil. who is in Persson’s half of the draw.

Jacob van Seim, of Waitemata, won the men’s doubles in 1983 and 1984 with Steve Lobb. This time, he is top seed with Robson, while Whittle and the hard-working Wanganui player, Kevin Ross, are placed second.

Stewart, who won the title last year with Harrison, is seeded third with the experienced Waitemata player, Chris Tapper.

Whittaker and Karen Phillips, the doubles specialist of Counties, are the top seeds in the small women’s doubles field. They have won the title in four of the last five years and in the odd year, 1982, Phillips combined with Alison Wilson to win the event Robson and Whittaker will be seeking to regain the mixed doubles title they won two years ago. The open singles and mixed doubles will start tomorrow afternoon, and the under-21 events will begin on Wednesday afternoon.