2009 St.Louis Open Doubles Badminton Tournament Results
On the weekend before Thanksgiving the Missouri Badminton Club welcomed ninety participants from eleven Midwestern and Southern states to the Arnold Recreation Center for its annual St. Louis Open Doubles Tournament. A year-long effort by MOBC members to visit local, and not-so-local, university clubs paid off as this year’s group was the largest ever hosted by the club.
Reigning MBA mixed doubles champions Ben Hussey and Tiffanie Kimura were not as sharp as usual, struggling to finish off lightning-quick Anoop Vasu and Lisa Chen in the mixed finals, 21-16, 22-20. Tournament committee members Hull Wu and Jennifer Milne breezed through the B draw, defeating Naoki Matsu and Kaori Morihara of Ohio in the final. Hubert Chen and Lina Yi of Memphis won the C draw over Tony Fressola and Phoebe Thompson of St. Louis and Jason Jih and Lin Qing of Illinois won the D draw over Xiao Wu and Yeetoh Chaweewan of St. Louis.
The host club defended their home gym by winning both the men’s and women’s doubles events in tight three-set finals. Deepti Reddy and Donna MacDuff wore down the makeshift pair of Tiffanie Kimura and Serena Wong 21-19, 20-22, 21-10 in the ladies’ final. Boon Li Lee and Vina Zerlina of Indiana won the B draw over Milne and Lucy Hu of St. Louis and Rebecca Liu and Chaweewan defeated Alice Hu and Jing Gong of Indiana for the C title.
On the men’s side, Jim Meier and Xiaoming Zhang added the St. Louis crown to their titles from earlier in the year at Oklahoma and Memphis by outlasting Anoop Vasu and Gary Gill of Ohio in a vocal and tense final, 21-16, 14-21, 21-18. Tren Tran and Sonu Singh from Ohio squeezed by the father-son duo of Wei and Michael Huang of St. Louis 21-19, 21-19 in the B final. Hubert Chen added a second C title by pairing with Yongtze Chi to defeat Max Lee and James Chen from the University of Illinois 21-18, 21-18 and Cahya Harianto and Justin Li of Indiana cruised through the D draw besting Aik Min Choong and Chung Yong Chan of the University of Mississippi 21-12, 21-14.
