Hall slow to find his form : Badminton

badminton

BY James Leigh

Darren Hall, this country's outstanding men's singles player for most of the past 10 years, could face a serious challenge to his supremacy today, even though he reached the quarter-finals of the Bell Cablemedia English National Championships with two wins in straight games at Norwich yesterday.

The top-seeded former European champion is attempting to increase his record of singles titles to eight, but was nervy and out of sorts while trailing 8-13 in the opening game against the 20-year-old Steve Isaac. Although Hall recovered to win 18-13, 15-4, he may find himself hard pressed in tonight's semi-finals if he meets last year's runner-up, Peter Knowles, who reached the last eight with two confident victories.

"I was jittery," Hall said. "But this tournament means a lot to me and I am sometimes like that at the start." However, the champion tightened up his game when it mattered against Isaac, and had little difficulty in his second-round game against Graham Hurrell, allowing him only three points.

Sarah Hore, an England international who is Paris-based and unseeded, is capable of causing upsets in the women's singles, on the evidence of her trimmer, quicker appearance yesterday.

However, she must have been surprised to find herself with a second- round match against Olga Tchernysheva, a former Russian national champion in mixed doubles who qualified for the English Nationals on the one-year residential rule, having lived in Essex for the past 13 months.

Tchernysheva, taking an English language course at Colchester Institute, is a useful player, but Hore, who won 11-1, 11-4, was too good and looked in notably improved form.