eBaTT and the hosts ended the year on a successful note by winning multiple titles at the London Academy 2 Star on 14-15 December.
Senior Mixed
The Senior Mixed competition was won by Doniyor Makhkamov who beat eBaTT’s top seed, Sammy Kaye in the final 3-0 (11-4, 11-9, 11-4).
Kaye beat his club-mate Rajiv Padman 3-0 in the first semi-final (11-1, 11-6, 11-8), whereas Makhamov needed four to see off the best of the younger contingent, Max Gonpot (11-5, 11-8, 13-15, 11-8).
Under-19 Girls
The Under-19 Girls’ final was an all-London Academy affair, with Soraya Rahmani-Walentynska living up to her top seeding by beating clubmate Assil Sarri 3-1 (9-11, 12-10, 12-10, 11-6).
Sarri reached the final via a tough five-set match against Soraya’s younger sister Serene (11-3, 11-7, 8-11, 12-14, 13-11), while her opponent won a four-set encounter with second seed Charlotte LokChing Wong (11-9, 11-6, 9-11, 11-6).
Under-19 Boys
With club-mate Ben Levi having moved up to the Seniors on the day, the Under-19 final ended up being fought out between eBaTT’s Noah Byrne-Smith and Nsihil Shah, with Byrne-Smith taking the victory in five sets (11-5, 11-5, 7-11, 7-11, 11-6).
In the semi-finals, Byrne-Smith had seen off Hassan Damji in four sets (12-10, 11-8, 7-11, 17-15) with Shah also needing four sets to overcome Sora Ikazaki (11-8, 11-7, 7-11, 11-8).
Under-15 Girls
On Sunday the Under-15 Girls was contested as a single division with Charlotte LokChing Wong making up for the previous day’s disappointment by taking the gold medal with five wins out of five.
The remaining places had to be decided by a countback with Zoe Gonpot taking silver over Lok Yiu Lam and Daisy Watson.
Under-15 Boys
Nishil Shah was looking to go one better than the previous day by taking the gold in the Cadet competition. He did so in style, losing only a single set throughout the day. Shah beat Max Yeung in the final 3-0 (11-2, 11-6, 11-9)
Shah beat London Academy’s Adam Riadi in four sets in their semi-final (11-9, 10-12, 11-6, 11-0). In the other half of the draw, Yeung took five sets to beat Dhruv Dutta for a place in the final (3-11, 11-6, 9-11, 12-10, 11-8).
Under-13 Girls
The Under 13 Girls was also contested as a single division with Serene Rahmani-Walenmtynska taking the gold medal with five wins. Her team-mate Alexia Ciobanica took the second spot, with Adhuna Das finishing third.
Under-13 Boys
This was the most one-sided competition with Zihan Lin proving to be far too good for the rest of the field. Lin did not drop a set all day and was not remotely stretched in taking the gold. He completed the competition with a final win over Nikolas Karavas (11-2, 11-4, 11-5).
Lin made his way to final with a straight-sets win over London Academy’s Rafael Hanzel-Wacker (11-2, 11-4, 11-5), while Karavas reached the final by beating Luyao Yu in four sets (13-15, 11-3, 11-6, 11-4).
Under-11 Mixed
Dominic Rimmy gave London Academy their first win of the day and their second win of the weekend when he emerged top of the Champions Division. It took a three-way countback to separate Rimmy from second-placed Daniel Pavia and third placed Sakinah Damji
In the consolation division Lev Samurov took the gold with a clean sweep of four wins. Second and third also went to countback. In the end the silver was won Ethan Collins with the bronze going to Jacob Vogl.
