Three Barbadians were among the winners of the doubles section of the Barbados Tourism’s Authority-Badminton in Barbados Invitational which got off to a good start on Thursday at the Garfield Sobers Gymnasium.
In the women’s division, Mariama Eastmond teamed up with Helen Bartlett to beat Lauren Haywood and Arlene Mitcham, while in the all-Barbadian final Ryan Holder and Salim Bhikha defeated Corey Fanus and Nicholas Reifer.
Competitors were placed in groups, rotating partners in doubles action within a round-robin format. Individual scores were then calculated to determine who would advance to the final round. The women were split into two groups, and the men three.
The women’s division saw Eastmond and Haywood emerge as group winners from their cumulative scores, with Eastmond outscoring all competitors with 147 points and Haywood 142.
They were paired with Helen Bartlett (137) and Arlene Mitcham (131), respectively, to battle it out in the finals. Eastmond and Bartlett wasted no time in seizing the advantage as they cruised to an early lead winning the first set easily.
Mitcham and Haywood played much better in the second making fewer unforced errors. Eastmond and Bartlett won 21-12, 21-18.
The men’s division was determined by a weighted score due to the uneven numbers within the groups, allowing for eight participants to advance to face off in a semi-final round before advancing to the finals.
The three group winners were Under-15 Boys’ national singles champion Corey Fanus, Damien Howell and Dakiel Thorpe.
Of those three, Fanus made it to the finals to partner with Nicholas Reifer against Ryan Holder and Salim Bhikha.
Bhikha and Holder beat Thorpe and Howell 21-16, while Fanus and Reifer eliminated Nicholas De Cuyper and Sonu Singh 21-16.
Holder and Bhikha started well and went on to win 21-18, 21-20, 21-17. They employed strong net play to set up the bird to be killed and also used drive serves on Fanus, specifically, to force him into making weak returns.
Fanus and Reifer adjusted and were able to win the second, as Holder and Bhikha would at times give the attack away by lifting the shuttle.
The final game saw Holder and Bhikha going back to the basics as they played much flatter, pushing the shuttle towards the trams and created openings to score points.
(PR/SAT)
