EARLY January is an unusual time for a Badminton Tournament but five junior players from Horrabridge and BATs Junior badminton clubs took the plunge and entered the Torquay Junior Badminton Tournament just three days into the New Year.

In the U11s Will Nightingale began his tournament career by taking on Devon representative players at both singles and doubles. It was a baptism of fire and Will played well, winning one in the boys' doubles.

Rachael Williams and Francesca Morton entered the U17 girls' singles and doubles events. The singles event started with Rachael and Francesca playing each other. Frankie took the initiative and went on to take the game.

Both Rachael and Frankie were keen to play the other entrants and at the end of the event three girls had all lost just one game. It went down to points and just three points covered the top three places, with, unfortunately, Rachael having to take second place and Frankie third.

The U17s girls' doubles event included Devon County representative players. Rachael and Frankie had their confidence boosted with two good wins but then a tough game against a Devon representative pairing saw them lose by just one point.

With just the final round of games to play Rachael and Frankie were able to watch the Devon representative pairing lose, putting them back in the driving seat. One easy win later it was Rachael and Frankie celebrating taking the U17s doubles event.

David Wright and John Tailyour entered both the singles and doubles in the boys' U17s events. The singles saw a large entry and the group stages threw up a number of interesting encounters between Devon representative players and David and John. At the end of the round robin stage David had won each of his games and went through to the semi-finals where he came up against the eventual winner.

After the singles it was onto the doubles and once again David, now partnered by John, showed Devon representative pairings how to win games. At the end of the group stages David and John had won all their games and gone forward to the final where they played a Devon representative pair.

Unfortunately after the initial points the experience of the Devon representative pair began to show through and David and John found points hard to come by.

At the end of the tournament four out of five of the Horrabridge and BATs junior players came away with trophies and the knowledge that they had played to the best of their abilities against county representative players from Devon and Cornwall.