Emms top seed in two events at Europeans
Author: Badminton England
Date: 07 Apr 2006
Category: Tournament Results
ENGLAND'S
Gail Emms (Herts) has received two top seedings as she prepares for
next week's European Championships in Den Bosch, Holland.
She and
Nathan Robertson (Notts), the world No 1s and Olympic silver and
Commonwealth gold medallists, are the defending champions in the mixed
doubles where all four England pairs are seeded.
Anthony
Clark (Notts) and Donna Kellogg (Derbyshire) are third seeds, Robert
Blair (Leics) and Natalie Munt (Herts) fifth seeds and Kristian Roebuck
(Derbyshire) and Jenny Wallwork (Yorks) eight seeds. The second seeds
are Denmark's Jens Eriksen and Mete Schjoldager, runners-up in Geneva
two years ago, while the other top Danish pair of Thomas Laybourn and
Kamilla Juhl are fourth seeds.
In the
women's doubles Emms and Donna Kellogg are seeded to meet German pair
Nicole Grether and Juliane Schenk in the final while England's No 2
pair of Ella Tripp (Cheshire) and Joanne Nicholas (Lancs) are third
seeds.
In the
men's doubles Anthony Clark, a silver medallist with Robertson in
Geneva, is fourth seed with Robert Blair behind Martin Lundgaard and
Jens Eriksen of Denmark.
In the
men's singles Denmark's Peter Gade, Kenneth Jonassen and Niels
Christian Kaldau are the top three seeds but England have three players
seeded: Andrew Smith (Hants) at No 9, two-time National champion Aamir
Ghaffar (Middx) at No 11 and 2006 national champion Nick Kidd (Avon) at
No 16.
In a
strong women's singles Commonwealth champion Tracey Hallam (Staffs), a
quarter-finalist in Geneva, is seeded fifth with Elizabeth Cann
(Jersey) No 12 and Jill Pittard (Warks) No 16. France's Pi Hongyan is
top seed, Germany's Xu Huaiwen is No 2 and the Dutch pair of Mia Audina
and Yao Jie are Nos 3 and 4.
Before the
individual event England will tackle the 16-nation team tournament,
starting Saturday. England are in Group B and face Poland, Finland and
Bulgaria as they look to improve on fourth place in Geneva 2004. A
group win will put them in the semi-finals where they will meet one of
the other three group winners. Denmark, Netherlands and Germany are
expected to come through from Groups A, C and D. The team final and
positional play-offs are Tuesday with the individual events starting
Wednesday.
