Badminton at the European Games gets underway on Monday and the battle for the Women’s Doubles title is set to be a close one with a number of teams confident of going far in the event.
From the 24th to the 30th June, the continents top Badminton players will be heading to Minsk, Belarus in order to see who will secure the medals for their respective nations.
Piek and Seinen – Netherlands top hopes?
The pair of Selena Piek and Cheryl Seinen come into the Women’s Doubles knowing they’re the highest ranked of any Dutch players in the competition.
Piek and Seinen are seeded 4th for the games in Minsk, the only seeded Dutch players across all the five categories so they’ll be hoping to go all the way in Bulgaria next week.
They’ve been drawn in group 4 for the event alongside Johanna Goliszewski/Lara Kaepplein (Germany), Alzbeta Basova/Michaela Fuchsova (Czech Republic) and Bengisu Ercetin/Nazlican Inci (Turkey) and they’ll be confident of getting through that group and making it to the knockout stages.
Piek and Seinen are still looking for their first title together as a pair in 2019 and next weeks games could present the perfect chance for the World number 28 pair to go all the way and bring home the title.
Birch and Smith to cause an upset?
England’s Chloe Birch and Lauren Smith could provide a somewhat shock result in Bulgaria next week.
The World number 30 pair are unseeded for the event but could still easily find themselves going far in the competition.
They’ve got the form for it too, after winning the Azerbaijan International earlier this month so have all the potential to make an impact.
A tough matchup against the top seeds Maiken Fruergaard and Sara Thygesen (Denmark) could be a major hurdle in their challenge for a medal but if they manage to get past that then who knows how far they could go.
See the full draw for the European Games here
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