Joey Payeur
Some on-court digging yielded a treasure of silver for a pair of local badminton players at the Manitoba Junior Open this past weekend in Winnipeg.
Anika Alexander, 12, proved herself worthy against more experienced competition to earn silver in the combined under-12/under-14 girls’ singles division.
Meanwhile, her older sister, Kimika, 14, teamed up with Rae Nakonechny from the Identified Players Program (IPP) in Winnipeg to capture silver in the under-16 girls doubles category.
“There were lots of close games and our teams won all the full-set matches,” said local badminton coach Manami Alexander.
“Playing as an under-12 in the under-14 is tough competition, but [Anika] managed to make it to the finals competing against [aged] 13-14 players.”
Anika Alexander began with a win by default over Emily Gillespie of the Wildewood Club in Winnipeg, then downed Christine Logo of IPP by scores of 21-15 and 21-10 in the semi-finals.
That put her into the title match against Haley Nakonechny of IPP, who prevailed 21-15 and 21-16 over her younger foe to grab the gold.
Kimika and Nakonechny played in a straight round-robin format in the girls’ doubles division and got off to a rough beginning with a straight-sets loss to the duo of Jessica Schmidtke and Valerie Chan (Wildewood Club) by scores of 21-12 and 21-17.
But their early struggles only fired the pair up as they rebounded with an impressive 21-3/21-6 blowout over the IPP tandem of Ashley Stelko and Kathryne DesAutels
Then they outlasted Laura Goodwin and Lindsay Inglis (Wildewood Club) by scores of 18-21, 22-20, and 21-17 to clinch second place with a 2-1 record.
It was the highlight of a busy weekend for Kimika, who also took part in the under-16 girls’ singles event and was paired with Owen Kurvits in the under-16 mixed doubles division.
In singles action, she went 1-2 for the weekend, losing her opener to Misilyna Wu (Wildewood Club) by scores of 21-6, 21-10, pounding DesAutels 21-6 and 21-3, and then falling to Chan 21-10 and 21-11).
As for mixed doubles, Kimika and Kurvits crushed Mercedes Ballantyne and Archie Scott from Grand Rapids, Man. by scores of 21-5, 21-3, but then were ousted from further play by the top-seeded team of Dale Kinley and Melissa Liew (Wildewood Club) in straight set by identical 21-18 margins.
Anika Alexander pulled triple duty for the weekend, too, also participating in the under-12/under-14 girls’ doubles with partner Christine Lobo from IPP as well as joining with Fort Frances teammate Taylor Whitehead, 10, in the under-12/under-14 mixed doubles event.
Anika and Lobo cruised to victory in their first match against Ballantyne and Taylor Neff from Grand Rapids (21-3 and 21-4), but were eliminated by the duo of Morgan Isaac and Sena Lam (Wildewood Club) in straight sets by scores of 21-14 and 21-13.
In mixed action, Anika and Whitehead finished with a mark of 1-2.
They lost in straight sets to Isaac and Owen Rohl by identical 21-9 scores, then pulled out a thrilling 2-1 win (23-21, 19-21, and 21-17) against Katlyn Turchyn and Dylan Turchan.
But they ran into the tough team of Colleen Gillespie and Paul Brown (Wildewood Club) and succumbed by scores of 21-13 and 21-14.
Whitehead also played singles in the under-12 boys’ division, finishing at 1-2 with a 2-1 win (15-21, 21-20, and 21-14) over Tristan Karol of Grand Rapid sandwiched between a pair of losses to the No. 1 seed, Brown, by scores of 21-6 and 21-4 and Waterhen’s Quinton Coumont by another 2-0 margin (22-20 and 21-5).
Whitehead then teamed with the fourth member of the Fort Frances Badminton Club contingent, Adam Taylor, 11, to go 0-2 in the under-12/under-14 boys’ doubles group.
The local duo lost 21-11 and 21-13 to Daniel Liew and Wesley Chow (Wildewood Club) and by scores of 21-4 and 21-5 to Brett Sutyla and Dylan Turchan.
Taylor, playing for the first time in Winnipeg, also competed in the under-12 boys’ singles, kicking things off with a 21-6, 21-10 wipeout over Darven Hayashi of Grand Rapids before getting overwhelmed 21-8, 21-1 by Brown.
These same four players will be part of the 140-plus field that’s scheduled to take part in the Fort Frances Badminton Club’s annual home tournament this weekend at Fort Frances High School.
Action gets underway Friday at 7 p.m, with play resuming Saturday at 9 a.m. and then Sunday at 9:30 a.m.
