Badminton Xàtiva achieves 18 medals in four competitions held last weekend

Seville hosted last weekend the Absolute Spanish Championship, the Spanish Parabadminton Championship and a test of the National Inclusive Circuitwhere the setabense Selenia Pla hung the gold by proclaiming herself champion of Spain in parabadminton in the mixed doubles event. The Alcosa Sports Center in Seville brought together a total of 148 athletes from 56 clubs throughout the national territory. The Badminton Club was represented by Selenia Pla Mompó, who participated in the Parabadminton EC and in the CNI test and was accompanied by the coach M.ª José Mompó.

In the mixed doubles SL3-SH6, Selenia competed with her partner Pablo Serrano, from CB Astures, and they were proclaimed champions of Spain by beating the Andalusian couple formed by Iván Segura and Cristina Sánchez De Lechina in the final after 25 minutes. In the first set, the dominance was for Pablo and Selenia, who relaxed at the time of closing it and were about to have a shock when they ended up 21-18, which allowed them not to fall asleep in the second and secure gold by winning 21 -6. In the women’s individual test SL4-SU5, Selenia faced a new finalin this case against Cristina Sánchez De Lechina, a match that the Setabense woman began dominating the two sets with a clear advantage, but as each of the sets progressed she lost due to many unforced errors, and the setabense ended up giving up the match 21-12 and 21-17.

In the National Inclusive Circuit testwhere athletes with physical disabilities compete together with others without disabilities and by mixed couples, Selenia competed with Enrique Fernández, from the University of Valladolid, getting bronze. In the semifinals they measured their forces against the couple formed by Adrián Corrales and Cristina Sánchez De Lechina, in a frantic match in which equality was the main trend throughout the three sets played in the 57 minutes it took to decide which couple would play the final. The first set fell to Adrián and Cristina by 21-18, but Selenia and Enrique played a high-quality second set to equalize the overall score after winning 15-21. In the third set, after much equality, Cristina and Adrián prevailed 21-17, making it to the final.

Great weekend for Selenia Pla, who after achieving these three medals, faces a new challenge at the international level with her participation in the Bahrain Para Badminton International 2023, which will take place in Manama from May 17 to 23.

Provincial Championship

In it Provincial Championship of the Sports Games of the Valencian Community for juvenile and Benjamin categoriesn, which was held last Saturday in the Francisco Ballester de Xàtiva pavilion, the Setabense club, which participated with 4 fry and 5 youngest, won 11 medals.

In this last championship, the Setabenses closed the competition with some excellent numbers, 74% victories in the singles event and 83% in the doubles event. It stands out that all the defeats were between clubmates, that is, they did not give up any match against the players of the other five clubs in the province present in this Provincial Championship. In Benjamins, group A was entirely made up of athletes from Seta with Arnau Ballester, Joel Mahíques and Elsa Aliaga, who were classified in that same order. Group B had Adrià Meseguer who won the two matches he played; and in group C Aarón Fasanar played, who also got the two victories. In this way the final classification was headed by the four Setabenses.

In the women’s singles, the first classified and gold medalist was Elsa Aliaga. In the men’s category, Arnau Ballester took gold, Adrià Meseguer silver and Joel Mahíques bronze. Aarón Fasanar was fourth and FbadCV medal.

In the doubles event, the final was from Setabense, with the duel between Arnau and Adrià against Elsa and Joel. The first ones hung the gold after winning 15-8 and 15-12, while Elsa and Joel took the silver.

In the juvenile category, in the male individual, group A had the presence of two players from CB Xàtiva, Feliu Terol, who after his two victories secured the final, and Alexis Piñero, who with the second place in the group would play for the bronze. In group B Meshack Martínez got two important victories that gave him first place and a pass to the final. A final that Feliu won by 21-14 and 21-14, hanging the gold, while Meshack achieved the silver. Alexis took the bronze by beating Lucas Sanchis, from CB Manises, by a double 21-13. Thus, the podium was covered by CB Xàtiva. In doubles, the final was also from Setabense with victory for Martina Molina and Feliu Terol, who took gold after winning 21-12 and 21-11 over Meshack and Alexis, who thus achieved silver. The delivery of medals was carried out by the treasurer of CB Xàtiva, Vicent Molina.

Cartagena Tournament (Murcia)

The senior athletes of Badminton Xàtiva Santiago Villanueva participated in the Top TTR Sub-11, Sub-15, Sub19 and Senior tournament, held last Saturday in Cartagena (Murcia). The Setabense, who competed in the men’s singles +50 and men’s doubles +55 events with his partner José Belmonte (CB Molina), got the money. In doubles, Santiago and José achieved two important victories in group A, getting a pass to the final draw, where in the semifinals they faced the couple formed by José María Fernández-Caro and Gary Martin Hadfield, whom they clearly beat by 21 -10 and 21-5, thus accessing the final. There the duo formed by Candido Osorio and Tomas Payo awaited them, who prevailed after 41 minutes of meeting in two very close sets by 21-17 and 21-18, leaving Santiago with the silver DM +55. In the +50 men’s singles event, Santiago was not entirely comfortable and was unable to score any victories, finishing in fourth position.

Three silvers in the Valencia tournament

Finally, In the TOP TTR Absolute and Senior tournament held in Valencia, Eduard Beltrán from Setabenses competed in the absolute category and Daniel Meseguer and Carlos Martínez in senior. Eduard played the men’s singles, being framed in group F, where he faced the athletes Marc Villanueva (CB Viladecans) and Akis Leo Thomas (CB Paracuellos) making two very good matches of about half an hour, where despite his effort he did not could achieve victory.

In the senior category, Carlos Martínez got the silver after falling in the decisive match against Robert De Koning by 12-21, 21-15 and 13-21. The Setabense started with the score against after giving up the first set, but he knew how to come back and take the second, to reach the dispute of the third, where the athlete from CB Sant Pere de Benissa prevailed again. History repeated itself in the men’s doubles event, where Carlos together with his partner Anil-Kumar Bhardwajfrom CB San Fernando de València, lost in the decisive match, staying with the money again.

Daniel Meseguer also added a silver in the doubles test of the B1-B2 category, where he achieved victory with his teammate Pablo Lafuente, from CB Alboraia, in two of the three matches, losing only to the couple formed by David Sancho and Iván Soler. But a small ankle injury left him with no options to play the singles test at 100%, leaving him out of the fight for the top places.

upcoming competitions

The Xàtiva Badminton Club will play from May 17 to 23 in Manama (Bahrain) a new Parabadminton world circuit testto which he will go with Thomas Wandschneider, who will participate as a member of the German team, and with Selenia Pla, which will form part of the Spanish National Team. It will be Selenia’s second participation in an international tournament and she is looking forward to it with great enthusiasm to continue learning and try to achieve some favorable result. In the case of Thomas, the German player who plays for the Xàtiva club has numerous participations and his objective is the podium to score points in his career towards the next Paralympic Games.

The CB Xàtiva will also be next Saturday, May 20, in the Autonomous Master for the Under-15 and Under-19 categories that take place in Enguera. 9 athletes from Setabense will attend.

The club will also be represented in the II Autonomous concentration of the program Wanted Champion, next Sunday in Alicante, where Meshack Martínez and Alexis Piñero will travel accompanied by coach Javier Alcázar.

Finally, next weekend will be completed with some character training days on-line, where the Xàtiva Badminton Club coach will continue his ongoing training. The training will be carried out by the German coach Diemo Ruhnow, current coach of the doubles staff of the Spanish Badminton Federation and who had previously been in charge of preparing the doubles events at the German Badminton Federation.