Fiona Christie avenged her group loss to Esther Torres to enter the Women’s Singles Wheelchair (WH 2) semifinals at the VYV BWF European Para-Badminton Championships 2018 in Rodez, France yesterday.
Spaniard Torres had beaten Christie (featured image) to top Group C on Thursday, but the Scot turned it around in a thriller, holding off Torres 21-16 24-22. She next faces second seed Narin Uluc (Turkey), while in the top half, No.1 seed Emine Seckin (Turkey) takes on Spain’s Marcela Quinteros.
England’s Andrew Martin and France’s Fabien Morat made the Men’s Singles Short Stature (SS 6) semifinals with hard-fought victories – while Martin prevailed over compatriot Isaak Dalglish 21-19 13-21 21-12, Morat overcame an equally difficult challenger in Ireland’s Andrew Moorcroft 23-25 21-15 21-10. Morat next faces top seed Jack Shephard (England), while Martin takes on compatriot and second seed Krysten Coombs in the semifinals.
Coombs and Shephard also won their Men’s Doubles group match against Morat and Russia’s Alexander Mekhdiev 21-10 21-11.
In the Men’s Singles Wheelchair (WH 2) category, the top four seeds progressed into the semifinals without dropping a game. No.1 seed Amir Levi (Israel), second seed Martin Rooke (England) and 3/4 seeds Thomas Puska (Finland) and Rick Cornell Hellmann (Germany) eased into the last-four without much trouble.
Men’s Singles Standing Lower (SL 4) saw ¾ seed Pavel Kulikov (Russia) crash to Germany’s Tim Haller in a close battle, 19-21 21-17 21-14. Kulikov will face off against top seed Lucas Mazur (France) – who routed Germany’s Nils Boening 21-4 21-4, while in the bottom half, another Russian, Oleg Dontsov, takes on second seed Rickard Nilsson (Sweden).
Cathrine Rosengren (Denmark) won her second Women’s Singles match in the Standing Upper (SU 5) class to enter the semifinals. Rosengren beat Ukraine’s Ivanna Redka 21-8 21-4 to follow up on her Women’s Doubles (SL 3/SU 5) victory with Coraline Bergeron (France) over Zehra Baglar (Turkey) and Katarzyna Ziebik (Poland).
Rosengren however lost her Mixed Doubles (SL 3/SU 5) with Scotland’s Colin Leslie to Lucas Mazur and Faustine Noel 21-14 21-15.
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