Amber Lemmon claimed two more titles during the Mark Bates Ltd Under-12 National Championships, meaning she takes four golds from four events across the weekend, while Cindy Xiao comes home with three gold and a silver.
Across the rest of the field, a hall full of Under-10 and Under-12 boys and girls battled it out for the right to call themselves a National Champion during.
Under-10 Boys’ Singles
The Under-10 boys were divided into four groups with the quarter finals one stage of the event away. Seven of the top eight seeded players advanced from their groups to set up the competition. Daniyal Janmohammed saw off Jonti Barnes to set up a semi final face off against Stefan Wierszyllowski, who had previously come from behind to take the win over Jacob Dennison. Sanav Sethi and Oliver Willis also progressed to the final four by claiming victories over Calen Dawson and Oscar Jones respectively.
Both Wierszyllowski and Willis stormed through their semi finals 3-0, with Wierszyllowski winning 14-12 in the third. The final then saw Wierszyllowski build an early 2-0 lead, before being brought back down to earth by Willis who took the third 11-2. But Wierszyllowski pulled through again to claim the final set of the U10s event 11-3, to call himself a National Champion.
Under-10 Girls’ Singles
The Under-10s girls played off in two groups with the winners and runners up progressing straight to the semi final stage of the competition. In the end it was Hattie Xiao and Daisy Fieldhouse who won their respective groups, while Tanvi Srirama and Swara Mahabhashyam made it to the semi finals as runners up.
Xiao defeated Srirama 3-0 (9, 7, 9), while Mahabhashyam showed her metal against fieldhouse by securing at least a silver medal by coming from behind to take a 3-1 win.
In the final started as though she meaned to cause an upset against the top ranked player as she took the opening set 13-11. But Hattie Xiao of Archway showed why she entered the competition as the one to beat, and took the remaining three sets required to call herself the U10 National Champion (8, 3, 9).
Under-12 Boys’ Singles
Sixteen places were on offer to the athletes in the knockout stages. The big surprise in the group stages was Thomas Nguyen, ranked 32 overall, who progressed from Group 1 as runner up behind Dimitar Dimitrov. He set up a Round of 16 tie with Malek Shamakh, where his journey ended, losing 3-0. Saisurya Prasanna Kumar set up a rematch of the previous day’s U11 Boys’ Final opponent Thomas Ellis in the Round of 16, and although the result was the same, Kumar came out of it with a 3-0 win.
The highlight fixture of the quarter finals came as Lusio Wen defeated Jayden Chen 3-2 in a thrilling encounter. After going 2-0 down, Chen battled back to level terms, with the fourth ending 16-14 in Chen’s favour. But the final set ended 11-9 to Wen who guaranteed himself a medal in the process.
Wen’s reward was a semi final against Dimitar Dimitrov, which ended 3-0 (8, 3, 5) the top seed. On the other table, Li Hao Chen grabbed his spot in the final by ending Saisurya Prasanna Kumar’s hopes of two singles titles in two days. The final score was 3-0 (9, 7, 13).
In a close opening set, Chen ended up taking the initiative to open the first gap between him and Dimitrov. But off the back of two silver medals the day before in the U13s, Dimitrov ploughed on and ended up taking three sets in a row to successfully defend his U12 National title.
Under-12 Girls’ Singles
The four groups in this event were contesting for places to land right into the quarter finals where all of the top two ranked players proceeded onwards in the competition. Amber Lemmon kept up her impeccable form from the weekend by seeing off Bethany Yang 3-1, while Alexia-Bianca Ciobanica secured at least a bronze medal by claiming a win against Serene Rahmani-Walentynska 3-2, with the fifth ending 11-9. Cindy Xiao had a repeat of the U11 Girls’ Singles final in the quarter final against Isabella Xiao Xu, where the former secured herself another medal for the weekend and Phoebe O’Brien defeated Mindy Gao.
In the semi finals, Amber Lemmon won against Alexia-Bianca Ciobanica 3-0, while Cindy Xiao set up a final against her doubles teammate after beating Phoebe O’Brien 3-1.
Lemmon, the older of the two finalists showed her experience in a dominant performance over Xiao to claim a 3-0 win for her third title of the weekend, despite some good rallies and spirit from her Archway and doubles teammate.
Under-12 Boys’ Doubles
The Under-12 Boys’ Doubles started with a round of five preliminary matches, to earn a spot in the quarter finals, where the players could meet one of the top three seeded pairings. Malek Shamakh and Dimitar Dimitrov were seeded at one, Jayden Chen and Li Hao Chen were seeded at two and Zacharia Sarri and Nicholas Andrei were seeded at three.
After the quarter finals, Sarri and Andrei had set up a semi final meeting with Shamakh and Dimitrov, who ultimately prevailed with a 3-0 win (6, 9, 9), while Jayden Chen and Li Hao Chen were to face fourth seeds Lev Sahmurov and Jacob Vogl. In the end, it was the Chen’s who progressed with a 3-0 scoreline (7, 7, 5).
In the final, Li Hao and Jayden Chen got off to a flying start, taking the opener 11-5. But Shamakh and Dimitrov came back into the match up take the following sets 11-8, 13-11, 11-8 to claim the National title.
Under-12 Girls’ Doubles
In the girls’ event, play began with the quarter finals, where six pairings fought for a spot in the semi finals, where top seeds and Under-13 Girls Doubles champions Amber Lemmon and Cindy Xiao had received a bye.
It was Isabella Xiao Xu and Bethany Yang who ended up facing Lemmon and Xiao in the semi final after defeating Fleur Scrivani-King and Saskia Svoboda 3-0 (6, 6, 7).
In the second half of the draw, Serene Rahmani-Walentynska and Alexia-Bianca Ciobanica saw off Alice and Keira Lee 3-0 (0, 4, 2), while Sakinah Damji and Phoebe O’Brien took the final spot in the semi finals.
Lemmon and Xiao used their team chemistry in the final to take the lead after an 11-8 set. But Damji and O’Brien impressed with some marvellous rallies to level the scores after the second (11-5). From here, Lemmon and Xiao pressed on, and although Damji and O’Brien made it difficult, Amber and Cindy took the crown and with it, secured their fourth and third National titles of the weekend.
This concludes the Mark Bates Ltd U10-U13 National Championships from the Brentwood centre. Full results and highlights will be posted in the coming weeks.
