Harris and Tolman soar to Hungarian Open women’s doubles title

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Abbygael Harris and Lizzie Tolman came from a game behind to win the women’s doubles title at the Hungarian Open.

The English pair got past Sweden’s Malena Norrman and Xu Wei 19-21 21-19 21-14 in a three game thriller to take the title in Budapest.

The Swedes had previously knocked out Annie Lado and Sian Kelly in the semi-finals to erase the possibility of an all-England final.

Lado and Kelly fell 21-15 22-20, almost forcing a third game before bowing out in the final four.

Harris and Tolman cruised past France’s Marie Cesari and Lilou Schaffner in the semifinals to continue their a streak of success in Hungary, responding well to losing the opening game to force a third and clinch victory.

Oliver Butler and Samuel Jones were on the other side of the scoreline in the men’s doubles final.

Despite a strong start, the duo fell 9-21 21-11 21-11 to Canada’s Jonathan Bing Tsan Lai and Nyl Yakura and were forced to settle for silver.

The Canadian pair had beaten Chua Yue Chern and Koon Fung Kelvin Ho of England 22-20 17-21 21-13 in the semi-finals to reach the showpiece.

Both Butler and Kelly had previously teamed up to reach the mixed doubles semi-finals.

The duo lost 21-19 16-21 21-15 to Serbia’s Mihajlo Tomic and Andjela Vitman, having produced a brilliant second game to put themselves in contention. But the Serbian duo were ultimately too much to overcome.

Elsewhere, there was a quarter-final appearance for Jones and Lado in the mixed doubles.

They struggled to get going in the opening game before roaring back into form, losing out 21-10 22-20 to Jeppe Soeby and Kathrine Vang of Denmark in the end.

Leona Lee also reached the last eight in Hungary, the furthest singles run of any English player at the tournament.

Lee brushed aside Germany’s Barbora Bursova in the round of 16 but was unable to overcome Chinese Taipei’s Wang Yu Si in the quarterfinals, losing out 21-15 21-17.

Freya Redfearn and Nadeem Dalvi missed out on progressing to the quarter-finals in their respective singles campaigns, having bowed out earlier in the competition.