Scottish Para-Badminton stars in action at the European Championships
Five of Scotland’s best players are competing at the VYV BWF European Para-Badminton Championships this week.
Fiona Christie, Bobby Laing, Colin Leslie, Deirdre Nagle and Alan Oliver have all travelled to Rodez, France, in search of silverware in their various events.
In Group 3 of the SL3 men’s singles, third seed Leslie won both of his matches to progress to the quarter-finals. In Group A, Oliver won one and lost one to finish second in his group, but that was enough to send him through to the round of last-sixteen in the knock-out stages.
There he will face Oleksandr Chyrkov with a potential all-Scottish quarter-final against Leslie in the offing if he is able to beat the Ukrainian on Friday morning.
The two Scots will also face each other on Thursday evening in Group D of the SL3/SL4 men’s doubles.
Oliver, playing with Rickard Nilsson of Sweden, is seeded joint 3/4 and will face Leslie and his English partner Anthony Forster in the opening match of the group.
In the SL3-SU5 mixed doubles joint 3/4 Leslie and Cathrine Rosengren (Denmark) won one match but lost the other to finish as runners-up in Group D.
That was enough to send them through to the quarter-finals, though it makes their task more difficult than had they topped their group as it means they will now have to overcome top seeds Lucas Mazur and Faustine Noel of France to progress any further.
In the wheelchair events Fiona Christie, playing her last ever European Championships, finished second in Group C having won one and lost one match.
She now faces Spaniard Esther Torres in the quarter-finals for the right to take on second seed Narin Uluc of Turkey in the semis.
Christie and Finland’s Timo Villanen also finished second in their mixed doubles group. They will have to overcome German pair Rick Hellman and Elke Rongen in the last-sixteen to progress.
Bobby Laing and Deidre Nagle are representing Scotland in the SS6 events. In the singles Laing beat Serbia’s Djordje Koprivica but lost to Isaak Dalglish and Andrew Martin, both of England, which ended his campaign.
Nagle still has one singles match to play, against second seed Rebecca Bedford of England, but she is unable to progress from her group having already lost her first two group matches.
Laing and Bedford are second seeds in the mixed doubles but lost a close encounter with Dalglish and Maria Bartusz to finish second in their group, meaning they will have to beat top seeds Andrew Martin and Rachel Choong in the semi-finals to have a chance of winning the gold medal
But Laing has already secured Scotland’s first medal of the event, as both losing semi-finalists receive a bronze medal.
Draws, schedules and results are at www.tournamentsoftware.com