Last Thursday the top male badminton players in colleges and universities on the island of Ireland headed to Waterford IT Arena for the Student Sport Ireland / Badminton Ireland Men’s Open Singles. NUI Galway student Callum Thomas was crowned champion after victory over Jack Davies (Letterkenny IT) in a fantastic final.
The round robin format of four groups of three players saw Thomas advance with victories over Philip Britton (TU Dublin City Campus) and home favourite Eoghan O’Grady (Waterford IT) to top his group and set up a semi-final against his university teammate Rian Fox Hughes in a 21-14, 21-17 score line.
Jack Davies advanced to the semi-finals after coming through a very tough group as he had a 3-0 win over Luke Reilly (TU Dublin City Campus) but then had to pull out all the shots to defeat James Clerc from (Griffith College Dublin) with the French native Clerc eventually being defeated 2-1. In the semi-finals Davies took the momentum from his win over Clerc into the game and saw off Ben Power (TU Dublin City Campus) 21-11, 21-11.
It appeared in the final that Callum Thomas was going to march through Davies quiet easily after a 21-11 win in the opening set, however Jack Davies really upped the tempo in the second set and sent the game to a decider winning the set 21-19. The crowd were again served up a gripping final set with both players in the winning seat at stages, but it was NUI Galway student Callum Thomas who got over the line 21-15.
Brian Cheng (Dundalk IT) took the honours in the Shield Competition defeating Jeremy Sch (Dundalk IT) and Ganesh (National College of Ireland) in the round robin play off in that competition.
WIT Arena proved a very popular venue for the competition with eight courts on the go from 10.30am until 5pm with a total of 66 games played across the Men’s and Women’s Open Singles. A big thank you to WIT Arena and their staff and to Badminton Ireland especially Fiach Andrews for all his help on the day.
Student Sport Ireland / Badminton Ireland Men’s Open Singles Final Placings
Open Singles Shield Final – Callum Thomas (NUI Galway) defeated Jack Davies (LYIT)
3rd/4th Play Off – Rian Fox Hughes (NUI Galway) defeated Ben Power (TU Dublin City)
5th/6th Play Off – Terence Er (Dundalk IT) defeated Eoghan O’Grady (Waterford IT)
7th/8th Play Off – David Barton (TU Dublin City) defeated James Clerc (Griffith College Dublin)
9th/10th Play Off – Patrick Martin (TU Dublin Tallaght) defeated Luke Reilly (TU Dublin City)
11th/12th Play Off – Sheryas Datar (National College of Ireland) defeated Philip Britton (TU Dublin City)
Open Singles Shield Winner 13th Overall – Brian Cheng (Dundalk IT)
