The 0630 start (The 0 stands for “0 my god it’s early”) to Cornwall’s badminton first team took its toll at the weekend with Duchy crashing out 12 – 3 to Oxfordshire.
Playing before a large crowd things seemed to be going ok for the Cornish after the singles with the round tied at 2 – 2. The unbeaten singles run from the Cornish number one Kelvin Edwards continued with straight sets win over his Oxford opponent. Claire Whitmore also chalked up the other win for Cornwall with an impressive display of attacking badminton to clinch the number two tie.
In the doubles the only Cornish pair to win a game was Guy Michell and Tom Lyle against the Oxford number twos. Guy remarked “My singles was a nightmare, the journey up was exceptionally long and as much as I warmed up before the game I just could not get going” he continued “It was a sweet revenge to clinch my second doubles match”
Kelvin Edwards and Ross Lashbrook ran the second pair close but just missed out in the third 20 – 22. Jo Philip was back with her county restricted champion partner Rachel Irish, Rachel who has just returned from a Barbados training camp commented “We were really unlucky against their number ones, I feel fitter after my training camp, but the journey back and then the long trip up here inevitably took it out of me”
So with score line at 9 – 3 going into the mixed the Cornish were looking to take all three to salvage a point. It was not the Duchy’s day losing all three ties, the closest mixed game belonged to Kelvin Edwards and Bron Wotton taking the Oxford first pair all the way but just losing out 21 – 19 in the third. “It has been a difficult day” remarked Bron “Without making excuses, we lost the match, Oxford didn’t win it, the journey up was tough and the shuttles we had to use were very poor, in our mixed we used an extortionate amount of shuttles, they kept breaking”
Next match: 8th November - Hampshire away.
