January 2025: Junior round-up
13 February, 2025
It was another busy month for England’s junior players and one filled with medals as they enjoyed success on the international stage.
January saw England take bronze in the International Girls Cup U15 before securing a number of golds across the age groups at the French Borders international.
Michelle Chen and Jamie Choong led the way in what proved to be a sizeable haul, while back home England Junior Performance camps were readying players for future success.
Here is a round-up of everything that happened…
International Girls Cup U15
In only the second iteration of the International Girls Cup U15, defending champions England emerged from a tough group to claim a bronze medal.
Owing to the success last time out, this year featured an expanded field with teams from Denmark, Czech Republic, Switzerland, England, Spain and France all participating.
England faced a challenging group with France 2 and Denmark, but rose to the occasion.
A strong 3-1 victory over France was followed by a 2-2 draw with Denmark, as they just lost out on a second win in the golden set.
But a comfortable 4-0 win over Spain saw England secure a podium finish.
England U15 girls on the podium at the International Cup (Credit: Badminton England)
U13 & U15 French Borders
Over in France, Michelle Chen and Jamie Choong were standout performers as they enjoyed success across all three doubles events in the U13 competition.
Choong partnered with Vihaan Nair to storm to a gold medal in the boys doubles, while Chen enjoyed equivalent success in the girls doubles with her partner Jennifer Ha.
The pair teamed up in the mixed doubles to add to their growing collection of golds as they defeated Kenji Pourret and Mila Borrelly in the final.
Chen also medalled individually as she claimed bronze in the girls singles, as did her teammate Abby Zyi en Gan.
Gan added a second bronze with Amitesh Purushothaman in the mixed doubles, while Purushothaman had also earned a podium spot in the boys singles, taking a second bronze medal.
There was also reason to celebrate for England at the U15 International as they proved dominant in the girls singles.
It was an all-England final as Mudra Mayekar met Mutiara Mandala in the gold medal match. In an exciting final, it was Mandala that took the spoils, a particularly impressive achievement given she is still under 13.
Silver medallist Mayekar would achieve another two podium finishes, taking a second silver in the mixed doubles with Phil Daniel and a bronze in the girls doubles with Vedanshi Jain.
Daniel and partner Nikhil Pulikkottil took an impressive gold in the boys doubles against Naim El Khadery-Perron and Lubin Racinne.
Pulikkottil also reached the final in the boys single but narrowly missed out on gold, losing 22-24 in the decider.
EJPP Camps
There were EJPP camps for U13 and U15 England players throughout January as players looked to build on their skillset.
Sara Sankey, Xu Huaiwen and Robert Golding all undertook an U13 camp with a singles focus where they worked on rear court neutralisation, pace changes in the rally and other pertinent skills.
At U15 level, there were camps with both a doubles and singles focus with Harry Wakefield joining Golding to focus specifically on doubles.
Golding had a busy month as he joined the U15s for singles training too, along with Harley Towler and Xu.
They worked on skills including defensive technique to turn the shuttle before finishing with matchplay.
The EJP camp in full swing at the University of Worcester (Credit: Badminton England)
U17/U19 EJP Camp
Over the weekend of the 11/12th January, the U17s and U19s took up residence at the University of Worcester Arena.
They were put through the paces with jump testing and the 30:15 test before breaking into singles and doubles-focused training.
Key focuses of the camp were court presence and encouraging players to express themselves on court.
