Irish No 1, Scott Evans will return to Dublin this December in an attempt to reclaim his men’s singles title at the Carlton Irish Badminton Open. Evans has chalked up some of the best performances of his career during recent months and hopes his winning form will continue when he competes at the Irish Open between Wednesday, 3rd December and Saturday, 6th December 2014.
In 2012, Evans became the first Irish winner of the men’s title in over 25 years when he beat French qualifier Lucas Corvee in a thrilling final. His bid to retain the title in 2013 came to an end when he lost in the quarter-finals to Lukas Schmidt of Germany. However, Evans’s recent win at the Brazilian Grand Prix and second place at the $120,000 Bitburger Open sees him at the top of his game and poised to reclaim the title.
Despite his excellent form the 2014 event brings no guarantees for Evans with players such as Denmark’s Rasmus Fladberg, Tzu Wei Wang of Taipei and Yan Kit Chan of Hong Kong looking to take the win from the Dublin born favourite. Finland’s Ville Lang is also back in town which is sure to delight the Irish fans.
In the women’s singles, Ireland’s Chloe Magee will be looking to make her mark against former Irish Open winner Denmark’s Line Kjaersfeldt and European silver medallist Anna Thea Madsen. Magee lost out last year in a see-saw quarter final to Beiwen Zhang of America. She has since worked on her game to achieve some great results at the 2014 All England, Hellas International and Brazilian Grand Prix making her a strong contender for this year’s title.
Sam Magee pairs with his younger brother Joshua for the first time at an Irish Open. Since forming a Men’s Doubles partnership the pair have gone from strength to strength with impressive results at the 2014 Canadian Open and the 2014 Brazilian Grand Prix where they secured a Silver and Bronze respectively.
The men’s doubles will be hotly contested with world number 33 pairing of Baptiste Careme and Ronan Labar of France looking to claim the win ahead of new English pairing Marcus Ellis and Matt Nottingham.
The Magee family will be out in full force with brother and sister Sam and Chloe Magee also playing in the Mixed Double event. The pair are no strangers to winning and took silver at the recent Brazilian Grand Prix. While the Magee’s are favourites to take the win on home soil, three French teams ranked within the world’s top 70s pairings will pose a significant threat along with the Danish paring Niclas Nohr and Sarah Thygesen.
A total of 300 players from 36 countries have signed up for this year’s Irish Open in Baldoyle Badminton centre. With the Irish players on form it promises to be a great tournament for the home side.
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For further information please contact David McGill 087 249 0662 or 01 839 3028
Irish Open 2014 will be streamed live on Badmintonireland.net/bitv. Results will be updated live on our twitter @bad_min_ton with photos from the event available on our Facebook page.
Social media: If you’re covering the story, we’d love you to get involved on social media! We’ll be using the hashtag # and useful handles are @bad_min_ton @Scott-Evans1 @chloenmagee @josh3magee @Sam9magee
