Solid start for England at BWF Para-Badminton World Championships
England have enjoyed a positive start to their campaign at the BWF Para-Badminton World Championships in Stoke Mandeville.
The opening day of the championships saw over 240 matches played across six classifications of para-badminton as the best players from around the world battled it out at Stoke Mandeville Stadium, the home of the modern Paralympic movement.
Team England’s squad of 21 showed the skill and determination that saw them win five gold medals at the last world championships in Dortmund in 2013, as most of their seeded stars won their opening group games.
Top seed in the men’s singles SL class Daniel Bethall, from Chippenham, eased through his opening match, while Liverpool’s Rachel Choong came through her opening three ties without dropping a game.
But Exeter’s David Follett (pictured) claimed the biggest scalp of the day, beating fifth seed Avni Kertman 15-21 23-21 21-17 in the WH1 class.
Richard Morris, Head Coach of England’s Para-Badminton squad, said:
“Our target coming into the world championships was to beat the performance in Germany two years ago so we are aiming for a 12-medal haul.
“I feel with the squad we’ve got and the performances today we can certainly achieve this and keep moving the sport forward towards Tokyo 2020.”
Elsewhere results went to the form book and seeding with very few shocks across the draw.
There was an initial group stage defeat for WH2 second seeds David Toupe and Sonja Haesler, while England’s Martin Rooke and Switzerland’s Karin Suter-Erath also lost one of their opening games in the WH2 class.
This is the first BWF Para-Badminton World Championships to be held since it was announced last year that para-badminton would be making its debut at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games.
