DK Way U18 - Sunday 13 May 2018 - Charlie Wakefield

DK Way U18 – Sunday 13 May 2018 – Charlie Wakefield

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Sunday 13 May – DK Way U18 Open

On 13/05/18, myself (Charlie Wakefield) and Luke traveled to Ware in Hertfordshire for the DK Way U18 Open tournament. With the mixed doubles first, I paired up with my regular mixed partner Caitlin Parfitt from Norfolk and Luke paired with Anoushka Mcintosh from Berkshire. Unfortunately, we met in the group stage in a really tough box including the No.1 seeds from Lincolnshire, Ryan Curtis and Meghan Hasall. Myself and Caitlin played the seeds first match on and despite having 3 chances to take the game, twice before and once during setting, we lost the first set 24-26. We found our rhythm again and came back in the second to win 21-17 before going 8-18 down in the third and coming back to make it 18-20 and eventually losing 18-21. We then met Luke from ForzaWM and Anoushka where once again, we had a very close three set game with myself and Caitlin eventually coming out on top 21-15, 20-22, 21-16. Luke then had a tough match with the seeds losing out 8-21, 12-21.

In the singles, I found myself in a tough box with a rival and 5/8 seed that I had lost to before in the Redbridge u17 Gold in a tight 3 set game, Christopher Chong from Surrey. The first match was fairly comfortable against Joseph Waugh from Hertfordshire 21-5, 21-16 and then I had to play Christopher Chong. After one of the hardest singles matches of my life, I eventually won after nearly an hour on court 18-21 21-17 21-12. With the third match again being quite straight forward against Nathiran Rajamohan 21-9 21-7, I progressing with a bye to the quarter final stage where I met the number one seed and eventual tournament winner, Brandon Adams from Herefordshire. I did my best to put up a fight but his sheer consistency and experience gave him the edge, and I went on the lost 14-21, 13-21. I was,

however, pleased to find out this was the best score anyone in the tournament had posted against him.

In the doubles, I paired up with Bradley Smith and unfortunately, I once again met Luke in the group stage. After losing our heads and a lot of fatigue, we lost our first group match against a younger pair we should have really beaten however we played much better against the No.2 seeds in Luke Davies and his partner Mannah Rahman. After once again, a very close three set match, this time Luke came out on top winning 11-15 15-12 15-12. Luke and Mannah progressed to the semi-final where they lost a close match 17-21 to the third seeds, Daniel Strickland and Jack Agnew. (The scoring format kept changing due to shortage in time.)