Watt set for Irish Open

With some 106 players from England, Denmark, France, Scotland, Sweden and India taking part in the competition, as well as the home nation, there will be a truly international flavour to the event.

In the group stage Michael should have little difficulty getting to the main draw with Sean Leahy and Ronan Tumilty his opposition in the group A.

Meanwhile Per Rasmussen, Brian Moore, Bertrand Abraham and Peter Baeza will battle it out from Group B.

Watt will team up with his erstwhile doubles colleague Michael Turkington to see if they can go one better than in the Ulster Masters when they lost out to Alpha’s Eugene McKenna and Graham Henderson who will not be in the draw.

In their opening match Turkington and Watt face Per Rasmussen and Ronan Tumilty, followed by John Kiernan and Sean Leahy.

Former international Brian McKee gets his bid for the Over 60 singles title off the ground against Joe Wright and will be teaming up with Cheryl Evans in the mixed doubles and Joe Abbott in the mens doubles, facing Niall O’Flynn and Sean Tiernan in his first match.

Doreen McClements teams up with Imelda Breen in the Over 50 Womens doubles and they will meet Jackie Hurst and Chris Summers in their opening match with Miriam Gough and Caroline Regan second up.

Eugene McVeigh who is well known across the badminton scene for his work with the para badminton players and in particular for the success of his son Niall, the world champion from the Alpha club, will be in action himself in the Over 50 Mens singles with his openining match against Kieran McMahon.

Tony Clarke will be in action in the Over 65 mens singles and will have be keen to avenge his defeat at the hands of David Kenny whom he lost to in the Roadside Motors Ulster Masters but he gets his challenge underway with a match against Bob Evans whom he defeated in Lisburn 21-19 21-12.

In the mixed doubles, Clarke partners Dympna Sheridan again and they will be hoping they can snatch the title away. In the mens doubles the Kenny and Clarke partnership get underway with a clash against Leslie Frame and George Harrison.