Leeds Women’s Badminton 1st team take on Exeter tomorrow at 2pm in the LS Sport Match of the Day at The Edge. LS’s Ste Topping caught up with Gryphon Helena Lewczynska ahead of the big game to discuss the team’s chances of cup success.
With the league season now over, looking back how do you feel it went?
It went really well, it was our first season in the Premiership. We did come second to last but before the last match we were drawing with the second and third [placed] teams so it was really close and I think we did really well.
Did you find the transition from the lower division to the Premiership quite difficult then?
Yeah. It was a really, really big jump, and we’ve been having really good matches this season, although last season we were kind of finding our games quite easy. So it was nice for us to be in the Premiership because every Wednesday we’ve been getting really good games.
How do you think the side could improve for next season?
I think just closing off matches, because between Birmingham and Leeds Met we had some really tight three set matches, so I think improving how people concentrate towards the end of matches if it gets close.
With only the cup to look forward to for the rest of the year, how do you rate your chances of success?
Well I think our first match we’re quite confident in, because I think Exeter came last in the Premier South, and in general in badminton the Northern division is a lot stronger. So I think we can win our first match and then I’m not sure about the rest but, hopefully if we got to the semi final that would be brilliant.
Many students won’t know how a badminton fixture works, can you explain the format?
Yeah, there’s four women’s singles games and four women’s doubles games. It’s ranked, so we have our number one women’s singles and our number two women’s singles, and the same with the doubles, and it just switches around so the number one singles plays the number one singles then the number two singles, and then the same with the doubles so everyone gets two games.
Which players should we be looking out for in tomorrow’s fixture?
Well we’ve got our scholar Serena [Midha] who’s playing singles tomorrow so I think she’s definitely one to look out for, and I think our top doubles pair Ellie Travers and Vanessa [Jill] are playing, so they’re always really strong and have really good matches so watch out for them as well.
Image courtesy of LUUBC