Alpha players on Ireland duty at Euro contest

Alpha Badminton Club had five players in all playing in European Badminton Championships in Basel last week with Beth Stephenson and Rachael Woods in the first ever Under 15 Europeans.
By The Newsroom
Published 21st Feb 2014, 12:00 BST

In the women’s competition Alannah Stephenson, making her second championships appearance, was joined by Sinead Chambers as they faced the mighty No3 seeds Bulgaria in their opening match to be followed by France and the Netherlands.

The men’s team with Tony Stephenson faced Slovakia, the Czech Republic and no less than the top seeded Denmark.

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Bulgaria proved their number 3 seeding as they beat Ireland with a 5-0 victory.

Alannah Stephenson lost to Stefani Stoeva 21-4 21-14; Sinead Chambers & Chloe Magee lost to Stefani Stoeva & Linda Zetchiri 21-10 21-10:  Alannah Stephenson & Jennie King lost to Petya Nedelcheva & Dimitria Popstoikova 21-7 21-5.

Ireland took a one-nil lead against the French when Irish No1 Chloe Magee beat the higher ranked Sashina Vignes Waran in straight sets. Alannah Stephenson and Sinead Chambers in the next two ladies singles matches could be satisfied with their performances with the former almost snatching the opening set against Perrine Le Buhanic before going down 23-21 21-11 while Sinead fought back from a one set deficit against the European Junior medallist Delphine Lansac to take the second set going down 21-13 19-21 21-16.

With France holding a 3-1 lead the remaining two doubles were crucial if they were to get back into the match but Stephenson and Jennie King lost 21-16 21-14 while Chambers and Magee went down in two sets.                     

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Even with the odds stacked firmly against them the Irish girls matched the boys with a solitary group win in a group where any result whatsoever was never expected and a win over mighty Netherlands was just reward for their tournament efforts.

As always Chloe Magee led the way with the Irish No1 losing only one singles match against a top 20 player Petya Nedelcheva from Bulgaria. Against The Netherlands the Irish exposed the real singles weakness in the Dutch side by taking all three singles before the power of the Dutch doubles had a chance to influence the match. Magee set the tone with a straight sets win over Dutch national champion Gayle Mahulette before Alannah Stephenson and Sinead Chambers put the result beyond doubt with victories over Alida Chen and Iris Tabeling.