Geraldton finish their run at the under-17 national badminton championships

With the team championships completed attention turned to the individual events at the under-17 national badminton championships in Ballarat.

After finishing in fourth place in the team event, members of the Geraldton team were involved in singles and doubles matches starting on Tuesday.

No Geraldton players were seeded for the individual events as Jordan McDonald Geraldton’s highest-rated performer from the team event was first to fall against Yuhao Shen in a tough two-set clash 21-15 and 21-16.

Tyson Ugle was outmatched in his round of 64 clashes as was Rhiarna Ugle while Melody Kelly fell in the round of 32 all to straight sets defeats.

It was tough going in the men’s doubles finals as well as the pairing of Sam Koruthu and McDonald went down in straight sets in the round of 32 while Charith Siriwardana and Tyson Ugle also lost 2-0.

In the women’s doubles, Kelly and Serena Korutha and Rhiarna Ugle and Alexa Winfrey suffered heavy straight sets defeats in the round of 32 and 16 respectively.

The mixed doubles saw Siriwardana and Winfrey outclassed by third seed pairing of Shreay Dhand and Yee-Yuan Lim while Tyson and Rhiarna Ugle also had a straight sets loss in the round of 64.

Sam Koruthu and Kelly went down in a heavy two-set loss.

McDonald and Serena Koruthu fought hard but could not overcome their opponents, losing both sets 21-15.

The action was not over, however, as competitors still get to go through a repechage consolation round.

Sam Koruthu went down 30-9 as did Siriwardana.

McDonald battled in a 30-19 loss and Tyson Ugle fought hard in a 30-21 defeat to end their singles run.

Serena Koruthu and Winfrey lost 30-10 in the consolation round of 32 while Kelly went all the way against her opponent before ultimately falling 30-25.

Rhiarna Ugle went out in the round of 16 losing 16-30 and bowed out of the girls doubles along with Winfrey.

Tyson Ugle and Siriwardana were knocked out in the boys’ doubles.

However, there was success for McDonald and Koruthu in the mixed doubles dominating their clash 30-13 to post the first win for Geraldton in the individual event.

They then went down in a tough loss in the round of 16 pushing the sixth-seeded pair but fell to a heartbreaking 30-27 defeat to miss out on the quarter-finals in what was the final match for Geraldton competitors.

While it was a tough competition for the Geraldton squad their coach Michelle McDonald couldn’t be prouder of their efforts.

“The kids really gave their all and we have all learnt a lot for preperation for next years training and competition,” she said.

“I think we have all learnt new things over the four days — even myself as our coach.”