Lucas Punkari
For Fort Frances Badminton Club coach Manami Alexander, the progress made by 13-year-old Taylor Whitehead over the past year has been something to behold.
“I can hardly keep up with him,” she joked.
“I think he’s surprised everyone with how quickly his game has improved in the last year, and we are seeing a big improvement in his tight shots, which is always a good thing,” Alexander added.
That improvement came to the forefront over the weekend at the Manitoba Junior Open in Winnipeg, where Whitehead captured a gold medal in the U14 doubles division, a silver in the U14 singles division, and a bronze in the U16 mixed doubles division.
“I thought I played really well, and I was really proud of myself with how I played,” smiled Whitehead, a Grade 8 student at J.W. Walker here.
“Going in there, I was expecting to do pretty good overall as I have been practising very hard this year in wanting to reach my goals,” he admitted.
While Whitehead was confident heading into the event, Alexander was surprised that he was able to bring home a handful of hardware.
“I thought he would perform well, but I didn’t expect he would get medals in all three events, which was great to see,” she remarked.
“He did really well, especially in some really close tight games, and that just goes to show you that he’s going to be ready to go for the junior nationals later this year,” she added.
Of his three medals, Whitehead was most proud of his silver showing in the singles event, where he lost by scores of 21-10 and 21-12 to Paul Brown of Winnipeg.
“I liked that one the most because it’s my favourite out of the three events,” he explained.
“It’s what I strive to do the best in, and I played very strong in my games leading into the finals, which was great.”
The gold medal-winning performance in the U14 doubles division saw Whitehead and his partner, Daniel Liew (Winnipeg), prevail in a three-set thriller (22-20, 22-24, and 21-12) over the Kenora duo of Johnny Houlden and Andrew Neil.
Whitehead followed that up with a bronze medal in the U16 mixed doubles with partner Kinsley Sorenson (Winnipeg), who beat the Winnipeg pair of Mitchell Adey and Kelsey Duke in three sets (25-23, 16-21 and 21-7).
“I thought I played great in both events,” Whitehead said.
“I was able to make a lot of my shots to the side of the court, and I also spent a lot of time talking strategy with my partners, which seemed to help us out quite a lot,” he added.
After finishing in the quarter-finals of the consolation bracket of last year’s junior nationals in Richmond, B.C., Whitehead is preparing to make a second trip to the nationals, which will be held in Moncton, N.B. on May 14-19.
“Last year I got a chance to see a lot of good players, and that really opened up my eyes a lot to the world of badminton,” he recalled.
“And to also strive to be as good as the top players.
“This year I’ve improved a lot with my movement out on the court in getting to the bird faster, and I’ve also become a lot stronger both physically and mentally,” Whitehead noted.
“My goal for this year is to get into the quarter-finals, as this will be my last year competing in the U14 ranks before I move up into the U16 division,” he added.
Prior to that, though, Whitehead will be in action this weekend during the Fort Frances Badminton Club’s annual tournament, which gets underway Friday evening at the Fort High gym.
“I’m really pumped up about this weekend,” enthused Whitehead, who will compete in the men’s ‘A’ division.
“My goals are to stay optimistic out there and take whatever happens as I’ll be playing against a lot older and more experience players,” he remarked.
“But I am sure to learn a lot from it.”
The tournament will begin with singles play at 7 p.m. on Friday, with singles and doubles play starting Saturday at 9:30 a.m.
A mixed doubles competition will wrap up the weekend starting at 10 a.m. on Sunday.
