The penultimate day of competition took place in Melbourne today, with only one day left at the VICTOR Oceania Badminton Championships 2019. The juniors finished their group games in the morning session before the semi finals took place this evening. Check out the highlights from day two of competition.
10AM – MORNING SESSION
Debut Junior teams from the Cook Islands and Tonga came up against each other today in a very close match that went the distance, ending with a 3-2 victory for the Cook Islands. The young mixed doubles pair were elated with their win, smiling and high-fiving as they walked off the court:
“We’re so excited to have won our first match. This is our first time at the Oceania 2019 Championships so we’re are very happy”. – Vaitoti Tupa, Cook Islands
“We’re so proud to represent the Cook Islands in this tournament. We started playing at school and in the Shuttle Time sessions, before competing in the AIMS Games and Under 15 and now we’re so proud to be here.” – Morani Karika, Cook Islands.
Meanwhile, New Zealand and Australia continued to dominate on the courts against Tahiti and Fiji respectively. The juniors from New Caledonia also put up a fantastic performance of badminton to Samoa 5-0.
|
TONGA |
2-3 |
COOK ISLANDS |
|
NEW ZEALAND [1] |
5-0 |
TAHITI [3] |
|
AUSTRALIA [2] |
5-0 |
FIJI [4] |
|
SAMOA |
0-5 |
NEW CALEDONIA |
6PM – EVENING SESSIONS AND SEMI FINALS
The semi finals took place this evening, with New Caledonia being the only unseeded team to take part as the juniors celebrated a fantastic win over fourth seeds, Fiji, yesterday. Both New Zealand and Australia stormed through their semi finals with an impressive 5-0 win on both accounts to extend their dominant reign and set up the anticipated final between New Zealand and Australia. The two nations will battle it out for the gold medal from 12 noon tomorrow.
“Tomorrow we’ll be playing against New Zealand. We’re really excited and we hope we play well and win! The atmosphere will be really exciting. We are going to have an early night in preparation for the event and hope we can impress our coaches” – Otto Xing De Zhao, Australia
“It’s going to be a hard match tomorrow. We’re all friends but also rivals at the same time so it will be an interesting situation. We are going to try and play to our advantages. Both times will have to field their strongest team“ – Angela Yu, Australia
“Hopefully I’ll be on court tomorrow, but it will be an exciting match. We are preparing with a visit to the sauna, an early night and getting motivated for the match.“ – Shaunna Li, New Zealand
Tonga, who are taking part in their first ever Championships, celebrated their first Mixed Team victory this evening with a fantastic win over fourth seeds – Fiji. Chang Ho Kim was the only Fijian to secure two games against Tonga in his men’s singles and mixed doubles match, alongside Monica Chan.
|
NEW ZEALAND [1] |
5-0 |
NEW CALEDONIA |
|
AUSTRALIA [2] |
5-0 |
TAHITI [3] |
|
FIJI [4] |
2-3 |
TONGA |
|
SAMOA |
0-5 |
COOK ISLANDS |
You can view all of today’s results on Tournament Software.
The finals – Australia VS New Zealand – will take place from 12 noon on Sunday 17 February 2019 – you can view the schedule here.
Remember, you can watch this final take place on court two, live and for free on OVO mobile.
