SCOTTISH INT'L - Egelstaff takes Home Crown

Susan Egelstaff (pictured) followed the 2009 trend in winning her home International today just as Petr Koukal did at the Czech International and Petya Nedelcheva did in Bulgaria earlier this year. Egelstaff breezed by top seed Ella Diehl in 2 sets while Marc Zwiebler reaffirmed his current run of good form with gold in three sets over Dane Peter Mikkelsen.

By Mark Phelan. Photos: BadmintonPhoto.com (archives)

Egelstaff (née Hughes) was in search of her first ever home title and her first title under her new surname and was in dominant form at the Kelvin Hall in Glasgow is seeing off the threat from number 1 seed and two-time Scottish International winner Ella Diehl of Russia. The Commonwealth bronze medallist trailed Diehl 17-18 in the first but won the next four points to take the game and in doing so set herself up for an assault on the title that has eluded her throughout her career.

In the second game, the Scot was relentless and gave Diehl no opportunity to settle and at 13-6 down there appeared no way back for the Russian. Egelstaff continued to dominate and sensing victory was within reach, continued to push home her advantage and move further out of sight to eventually take the set 21-10 and with it the gold medal and, more importantly, the title at her home International Challenge.

"I feel great. This is the best performance of the tournament. In fact this is the best performance of my career," said a happy Egelstaff after her victory. "Diehl is a world class player with a higher ranking than me so I got to be happy. I got very nervy towards the end trying to close it out but I have played enough matches to handle that type of pressure by now."

Marc Zwiebler (pictured) continued his run of good form this autumn with a three-game win over Peter Mikkelsen of Denmark in the men’s singles event. Zwiebler, still riding on the crest of his Denmark Open Super Series wave, split the opening games with Mikkelsen before sealing victory in third. The German got off to the perfect start in the deciding set to lead 5-0 and no matter how the Dane tried he was never able to close the gap and Zwiebler took the victory with a 21-16 win.

As is the norm, Denmark took their customary gold away with them from an EBU event and on this occasion the honour went to up and coming men's doubles stars Conrad-Petersen and Pieler Kolding. The pair reaffirmed Denmark's strength in depth in this discipline as they came back from a set down to take the title in the day’s longest match, which extended just beyond the hour mark. The Danes' victory over Langridge and Middleton meant the English made the short journey home from Scotland with no winners' trophies in hand.

The biggest gold medal haul of the day went to Russia, and in particular Valeria Sorokina, as she won double gold in both the women’s and mixed doubles with partners Nina Vislova and Alexander Nikolaenko respectively. The victory in Scotland for Vislova and Sorokina is their sixth win on the EBU tour this calendar year and in Sorokina’a case it’s her second doubles double after winning both mixed and women’s doubles at the Dutch Open earlier in the year.

The EBU tour now moves onto Wales for the International Series-rated Welsh Open before stepping up a notch once again for the final International Challenge event of 2009, to be held in Dublin, Ireland.

For all results from Scotland click HERE

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