Wimble's of Wimbledon Badminton Club

Posted 15:07 10 February 2009 in Weekends.......What are they?

It was really strange to have chosen to only play one event rather than having to only play one event because I couldn’t find a partner, but this was the situation I was in for the Wimbledon.

Adam and I had won the doubles the year before, so when he asked if I was playing I said yes….believing it was 2 weeks after the Nationals. Unfortunately it wasn’t and it was the third week on the trot behind Devon and Nationals.

So I decided that to save my shoulder from suffering too much, I would just play men’s and not mixed as well.

This was definitely a good choice, because my usual mixed partner had a really tough draw hahaha….no in reality I’m glad I didn’t do more…..my shoulder was sore enough just playing four matches over the two days.

 

On the Saturday my other half was going wedding dress shopping with my cousin in Wimbledon and I wasn’t on till 16:40, so it was a leisurely start and then got up to Wimbledon for lunchtime. They went shopping and I stayed in my cousin’s flat with her husband and we played on the Wii till half 3. Time to walk the 20mins to hall, when I arrived I found out they were running late….typical!

 

A catch up with some friends and a good warm up, we were ready to play the winner of the 1st round game that we were drawn against. Fortunately we were 2nd seeds and had a bye, hence the later start time. We played two guys from Loughborough who we’ve played before and fortunately came through two tight sets. The first we thought was 14 and the second 19, but the guys we played thought that both sets were 21-19….rather than any arguing we accepted their scores and it went down as 19 and 19…..much to many people’s surprise we don’t always go looking for conflict!

 

The next round was against friends Dakin and Halsey from Warwickshire, they had overcome the two U18 Welsh International juniors (who had been seeded 2 in Devon….some dodgy seedings going on down there…..will elaborate at the end). We came through this game in two hard fought sets. This meant that we were through to the Semis on Sunday morning.

I was then asked if I would play mixed with someone whose partner hadn’t shown up……we’d had a couple of run-in’s in the past….with last time she said that I had no manners as per usual….I think its just a case of styles and personalities clashing on court. But if I hadn’t have been due to pick my other half up (And was already running late due to the tournament running on) and if my shoulder hadn’t have troubled me so much……I would possibly have played….although Adam did point out, if I had have agreed to play….how would I have explained that to Kat who I had turned down for mixed…..mmmmm…..that would have got me in a lot of trouble!!!!

 

So a night sleep in my own bed and then an earlyish start to get up to Wimbledon for ……needless to say they were running late….poor organisation I say!!! ;-) So went on for men’s semi against Ball and Porter….the last time we played them we were beaten in 3 sets at Hampshire on day 4, having played the Welsh and then travelled back to play Hampshire on the Saturday, then semis on Sunday….which we lost.

I was a bit nervous for this, as we had lost last time and the pressure of wanting to at least get to the final to have a chance of defending the title.

We won in 2 sets, quite close with certainly some noise made to keep the momentum up.

The win meant that we were due to play Armstrong and Roe in the final.

We were then told that the finals were being played back to back and starting at 13:30…..we were last and we’d be on at about 4pm!!!!!

 

I had a dinner reservation in Southampton at 7…..it would be tight, it takes about 1.5 hours to drive….so a match and a shower….would be tight….especially as I had to go home and change first….don’t think the restaurant would appreciate trainers and my Carlton Tracksuit as dress code.

 

We waited and watched the Arsenal game….I was at the Emirates when we gave away the 4-2 lead to draw 4-4….so was very disappointed that Eboue got sent off (although he deserved it) and we drew with the enemy again!

Went on for the match about and played appallingly!!! Errors off serve return…..some poor serving and some dreadful lifting…..my game just fell apart. I knew that we had a good chance against them if we played well….our game suits the new hall at Wimbledon….but in the end I was awful….lost in about 20 mins, if that!!!!

 

On the one hand I was very pleased to get to the final of a challenger….on the other hand was disappointed with the performance in the final….don’t think the 4 hour wait helped, but no excuses….we lost, they won. Due to my speedy collapse it meant I had no problem getting back for dinner…small recompense!

 

Next tournament is the Wiltshire 2 weeks time, just playing mixed in that, then at the end of March is the last 1st team weekend….so preparation is to ensure we are all firing at that time and manage to stave off relegation…..again!

 

*** The Devon seedings……

1 – Morgan and Philips – Welsh Internationals with a higher World Ranking than anyone else in the draw.

2 – Cox and Pritchard – Two Welsh juniors, who were sponsored by the sponsor of the tournament and the man who usually does the seedings for Devon BA.

3 – Corby and Corby – The Devon pair, who everyone in Devon is desperate to win the tournament and who are always in the paper…..not really ranked highly as they don’t play enough.

4 – Hurrell and Evans – Graham who’d won the tournament the last 5 years and I had a National Ranking of 15.

 

Not seeded – Adam Porter and Adam Smith – both ranked in top 30…with Smith ranked 14.

The conspiracy theory…..they couldn’t rank the Corby’s in the top 2 as too many questions would be asked, so fix the draw so they had the easiest half. Lets the 3 pairs in the draw who could beat them, would fight it out in the top half.

 

So cynical!!!

What is interesting is that since Badminton England have stopped seeding Satellite tournaments it means that the individual County Association are responsible….it certainly opens up to some very interesting seedings, some based solely on Rankings, some on defending champions, some on…..randomness!!!!!