Alpha pair miss out on final appearance

With players from a record 23 countries competing in this year’s Irish Future Series in Baldoyne including five ranked in the top 200, it was Alpha’s Keady Smith and Alannah Stephenson who put in one of the top performances of the tournament and narrowly missed out on a place in the women’s doubles final when they lost to Denmark’s Louise Hansen and Louise Seiersen.
By The Newsroom
Published 23rd Oct 2013, 10:00 BST

With a top class line-up in the ladies doubles the Alpha pair had opened their challenge with a 27-25 21-16 victory over the Norwegian pair Klyve and Sogaard and had to work hard to overcome the French pair Katia Normanand and Juliette Wattebled 21-19 21-13.

With the Danes having earlier brought an end to the hopes of the top seeded Austrian’s Sarina Kohlfurst and Nathalie Ziesig 21-11 21-12 the possibility of a place in the final should have been sufficient to ensure the Ulster pair knew how difficult the semi-final clash was going to be and despite falling one set down the scoreline of 21-17 must have given them a great deal of confidence.

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However, with the one set lead in their favour it also proved to be a confidence boosting performance for the Danes and they went on to secure their place in the final by taking the second set 21-6.

In the bottom half of the draw Alpha’s Caroline Black and Sinead Chambers had enjoyed a walkover in the opening round only to find themselves one set in arrears to Angelique Guilloux (France) and Jennie King (Ireland).

They came back to take the second 21-18 and ran out easy victors 21-11 in the decider to give them a quarter-final against the Scottish duo Rebekka Findlay and Caitlin Pringle, who were seeded to contest the final.

However, similar to their Alpha colleagues Smith and Stephenson, they were to make an encouraging start and were in with a chance to take the opening set only for the Scots to edge ahead to win 21-19. However, in the second, the second half of the match seemed to get away from them and this left them too much to do and the Scots booked their place in the final.

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Stuart Lightbody and Caroline Black were seeded No3 in the Mixed Doubles and after beating Ciaran Fitzgerald (Germany) and Ciara Dwyer (Ireland) 21-13 21-10 they were to progress to the quarter-final only to find the Danes Kristoffer Knudsen and Louise Seiersen too strong, dropping the opening set 21-11. Despite a very fine performance in the second set they were not able to take the match into a deciding final set 23-21.

Tony Murphy and Jennie King got off to a good start with a straight set victory in the opening round against a pair from Finland and followed this up with a 22-20 20-22 21-16 victory over their Alpha opponents Ciaran and Sinead Chambers, who had knocked out the French pair of Mittelheisser and Wattebled 21-16 19-21 21-16.

Another French pair of Corvee and Batomene had earlier put out Alpha’s Ryan Stewart and Keady Smith were then to end the hopes of Ireland’s Tony Murphy and Jennie King 21-12 21-16.

Related topics:Denmark