BUCS men’s badminton: York 2nds 6-2 York 3rds

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Photos: Jack Western and Oona Vernermo

An all-York encounter saw the York 2nds come out comfortable winners 6-2 against the York 3rds. However, the comfortable margin of victory belied the closeness and hard fought nature of the individual matches which in many cases could have gone either way.

The opening two singles matches were incredibly close, setting the tone for the afternoon with Jamie Fulton narrowly defeating Rolf Choutan 21-19 in an epic encounter to put the 3rds into a surprise early lead. This didn’t last as Fan Sayun defeated Johnny Tam in another epic, notable not just for its closeness but also for its high quality and the sheer variety of shots on offer. Fan won the first set 21-19 while Tam levelled the match with the same score line in the second, Fan then won the final set 21-13 to take the match.

The 2nds now started to exert some control in the first round of doubles fixtures. Al Qasyaff Zainal and Yan Fang were much too strong for Lichi Sun and George Kyle, defeating them in straight sets, in what was one of the only ‘routine’ fixtures of the afternoon.

In the other doubles match Marc Dickinson and David Gardner tightened the screws further edging out Mike Taylor and Mike Holmes in another 3-set match. Dickinson and Holmes won the first set 21-12, a comeback by Taylor and Holmes levelled the tie, but Dickinson and Gardner quickly rallied taking the final set 21-10.

The second round of singles matches of the afternoon saw Fulton and Sayun play out another marathon, in what was perhaps the game of the day. Sayun took the first set relatively comfortably. But Fulton who seemed intent on recreating his earlier heroics against Choutan took the second playing inspired badminton raising hopes that the thirds could perhaps get back into the tie. He continued in this vein into the third set but just ran out of steam at the last with Fan taking the final set 21-18 in a scintillating encounter. In the final singles match Choutan beat Tam in a physical match to put the tie beyond all doubt.

In the final two doubles matches of the afternoon Dickinson and Gardner overwhelmed Kyle and Sun in straight sets. In the final match Holmes and Taylor defeated Zainal and Fan in a hard fought 21-18, 24-22 straight sets victory that belied its dead rubber status. This left the final score 6-2, a fairer but by no means fully accurate representation of the state of play between the two sides.