A WIN in the final rubber from Julie Shawley/Deborah Vincent preserved Viking Ladies unbeaten start to the season in a hard fought 3-3 draw with Andover in the Basingstoke and District Badminton League Ladies 4 League.


Viking A have now stretched their lead over Beechdown A to points, whilst Andover move to within one point of second place.


Phoenix Ladies represented by Alison Rendall, Hannah Bonner, Liz Firth and Pim Bogaerts moved out of the bottom two with their first win of the season, after beating bottom side Beechdown B 5-1.


Alex Nagle and Sue Nolan managed to avoid the whitewash with a win in the third rubber as Beechdown B extended their winless run to five matches.


Viking A finally got their first win on the board at the fifth attempt with a 6-3 victory over Andover Sports A in Mixed Division One. The points were secured by hat-tricks from Tim Cooper/Julie Shawley and Simon Williamson/Alison Crawford.

However, despite moving three points clear of relegation they will be looking anxiously over their shoulders for the results of BH Pegasus who have two games in hand on them.


Phoenix B won the battle of the bottom two in Mixed Division Two with a 7-2 victory over Beechdown D and in doing so consigned their opponents to their sixth defeat on the bounce and moved off the bottom place.


The win was under-pinned by hat-tricks from Doug Greener and Caroline Stevens and Pranjal Mathur and Pim Bogaerts.


# The BDBL Junior Singles was played in a great spirit. In the schools final Nathan Johnson beat Matthew Eastick 21-9, although the match was closer than the score suggests.


The colleges final was won by Ricky Stephens who beat Sam Hayes 21-19. The two winners then played off for the singles shield which was won by Nathan Johnson by 21-19 following a gripping match that could have gone either way.

Waverley B extended their winless run to five matches following two recent defeats and are now nine points from safety in the Basingstoke and District Badminton League Mixed Division One.

Their first defeat came at the hands of Andover Sports A who showed no mercy with a 9-0 victory to move themselves up to third place, albeit having played more games than the teams around them in the table.

The second defeat for Waverley was a much closer affair as they narrowly lost to relegation rivals BH Pegasus by 5-4.

The result saw BH Pegasus leapfrog Viking A and out of the bottom two.

Waverley B had led 4-3 with two rubbers to play, but wins for Rob Clayburn/Christie Yao in the eighth rubber and for Martin Davey/Karin Themsen in the final rubber saw BH Pegasus over the line, as both pairs completed a brace of wins.

Beechdown A were awarded a 9-0 walkover in their fixture against bottom side Andover in Open Division One.

This took Beechdown out of the bottom two and leaves Andover and Andover Sports A in relegation danger as the year ends.