Click HERE for the results.

The first weekend in December saw almost three hundred young players compete in the Badminton England Open tournament in Stevenage. The Herts Schools Badminton Association has hosted this very successful annual tournament for over 20 years. This year like others in the past saw players travelling from all around the country from as far as Yorkshire, Jersey and Devon.

The tournament is divided into two age categories, the U13 and U17 and both events were well supported by Hertfordshire players.

The Under13’s had 27 players from the Herts county squad taking part. They all played extremely well but just one player won a medal, Anna Collis (Letchworth St Francis College) playing with her Shropshire partner collected the silver medal in the Bronze event. This was extremely good as Anna and many of the Hertfordshire players are a year younger than many of their competitors and for others it was their first experience of an Open tournament. They showed a lot of ability and determination and will benefit from the experience.

In the under 17s Hertfordshire was again well represented and the boys did very well winning medals in the Silver and Bronze events.

In the Silver event, Herts boys won Gold medals in both Singles and Doubles. In the Singles, Ryan McCarthy (Potters Bar, Chancellors) played extremely well to add another Gold medal to his collection. There were some close games but Ryan held his nerve to beat all the opposition; a great achievement as Ryan is still under 15.

The doubles pair of Arjun Shah (Harrow, Parmitters) and Ben Vranjkovic (Stevenage, John Henry Newman) surprised everyone last month (except their team manager) by reaching the final of the Silver event in Sussex. In Stevenage after several exciting matches this unseeded pair went one better and won the Gold medal, a wonderful result for them. Earlier in the day both boys played very well in the Bronze Singles event, they battled through an entry of over sixty players to meet each other across the net in the final. In a very good game Arjun beat Ben.

Other Herts players also did very well; the younger pair Scott Williams (Letchworth, Fearnhill School) and Matt McCloskey (Hitchin, Fearnhill School) reached the semi-final of the Bronze event without losing a game and only missed a place in the final by two points.

Hertfordshire Juniors are all playing extremely well and this augers well for the future. The U17 team is preparing for a weekend tournament in York, open only to the top counties. The U13 and U15 teams have both qualified for the Team Challenge Final, which takes place next year, and all three age groups remain unbeaten in the Shires league. At all levels junior badminton is thriving in Hertfordshire with more Schools playing badminton and more players wanting to join clubs.

Full results for the tournaments can be found on the Badminton England website by clicking the following links:

• U13 Bronze
• U13 Silver
• U17 Bronze
• U17 Silver