Friday 06-04-2018 - 16:00

We were very excited when we heard that Basia won the Scottish Universities Women's Singles Championship 2017/18, so we asked her to tell us a bit more about her experience.

"The Scottish Student Badminton Championship 2018 was held at Robert Gordon University, from 30th to 31st March. As I am in my first year of Human Biology at QMU, it was my first time at this event and in fact it was only due to a chance meeting two weeks earlier with the organiser of the event for this year, Stewart Fearns of Edinburgh University, that I found out the event was to be held at RGU that weekend. The women's singles draw was kind to me as I was one of the seeded players and on the Friday I managed two straight sets wins over opponents from University Of West Of Scotland and Edinburgh University before encountering another seeded player, Cara McCullough of Stirling University, whom I also managed to beat in straight sets (21-17, 21-5) to progress to the semi-finals on the Saturday. The atmosphere during the day was terrific with over a hundred players from around the world representing the different Scottish Universities and cheering on their fellow players.

On the Saturday I was joined in Aberdeen by Fraser Haldane, a second year Pharmacology student at QMU, whom I had not met previously and although a strong badminton player had not picked up a racket in competition for over a year. Despite that we overcame a slow start to our match to win in three sets (7-21, 21-19, 21-17) over a strong pairing from Edinburgh University, Jack Stevenson and Emma Chan. The next match was even tougher and although we had several match points, we eventually lost a hard-fought and exciting match to Mark Leith and Laura Muir of Strathclyde University (16-21, 21-16, 22-24), just failing to reach the quarter-finals. The semi-finals of the Women's Singles were held in the afternoon and my match was against Emma Cook of West Of Scotland University, the player seeded number one and winner in the two previous years, 2016 and 2017. After some initial nerves I was able to play to a good rhythm and won a difficult match that was harder than the score suggested, 21-8, 21-12, to reach the final. The final itself, as might be expected, was my toughest singles match and after another tense start I managed to settle down before going on to win in straight sets against the player seeded number two, also from the University of West Of Scotland and who represented Scotland in the previous Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Rebecca Findlay, 21-14, 21-17.

The winning point drew a loud cheer from Glasgow University students who appeared to have 'adopted' me during the course of the tournament and after my own short celebration I immediately went to the back of the court to thank them for their unexpected but welcome support. The evening proved to be the highlight for many of the competitors as a 'traditional ceilidh' was held at the Aberdeen Beachfront Ballroom. A great evening was had by all and at the presentation I was joined in receiving a gold medal by Ben Torrance, who won the Men's Singles for Strathclyde University, Caitlin Pringle and Sarah Findlay, who won the Women's Doubles also for Strathclyde University, Ciar Pringle and Matthew Duguid, who won the Men's Doubles for Caledonian University and Emma Cook and Josh Neil, who won the Mixed Doubles for West Of Scotland University. In presenting my medal Stewart Fearns informed me that this was the first medal QMU had won in the history of the Student Badminton Championships which added to my overall excitement at winning the event and made me very proud in having successfully represented my university."