U15 Gold Success for Lucy at Milton Keynes

After a 16 month gap, the Badminton England junior tournaments have finally restarted, with a series of Gold events played during June 2021.

Lucy Dodd travelled down to the National Badminton Centre at Milton Keynes over the weekend of 12 & 13 June, having entered the u15 Gold Star singles and u15 Gold Girls Doubles events. Tournament rules only allowed one doubles event to be entered, so she was unable to play mixed doubles on this occasion.

Singles was played on the first day. Lack of tournament level singles play in recent times left Lucy a bit rusty and she ended up 3rd in her group of 4, winning 1 and losing 2 matches. She improved over the course of the day and was unlucky to lose her last match with a 21:19 in the 3rd end to Sia Pandit, the group winner from Yorkshire.

The girls doubles was held on day 2 in a sweltering heat. Lucy played for the first time with her new partner, Lucy Brierley from Nottinghamshire, with the two Lucy’s seeded 1. The girls comfortably won all 3 matches in their group, which put them through to the final where they played Iona Muir and Saffron Morris, who are the number one ranked u15 girls in Scotland and Wales respectively.

The final was a very close-run affair, with both pairs playing well. The two Lucy’s won the first end 21:17 and looked to be closing in on a win at 19:14 in the second. However,Iona and Saffron fought back strongly to level at 20:20, before the two Lucy’s held their nerve to win the second end 23:21 and claim their first tournament win playing together.