The best U17 players in Europe have gathered in Prague to compete for European medals. On Tuesday morning, Hope Warner and the English team are ready for a fight when the team competition commends.
At 10:00 AM, the Czech Republic are opening the team competition against Bulgaria in group 7, a group that the local hosts are seeded to make it through from. Among the competitors in the group, we also find Cyprus and the Netherlands.
The group winners from the eight groups will be drawn randomly to face each other in the quarter-finals on Friday 24 November. Only the winners of group 1 and 2 have fixed places in the draw, which according to the seeding is expected to be respectively Denmark and England.
Denmark has participated at the U17 championships six times and won the first place all six times. But Hope Warner and the rest of the English team hopes to put an end to their ‘reign’ during the coming days;
- I think our team has the ability to break their streak, but for now we’re concentrating on one match at a time, putting up a fight in every game and hoping to get in a position where we can challenge any country in the latter stages of the competition, says Hope Warner to Badminton Europe.
Welcoming hosts
- We are looking very much forward to start the tournament and to host the best U17 badminton players in Europe, Jan Mikulka from Czech Badminton Federation’s Organizing Committee tells Badminton Europe.
The preparations for the organisers are soon coming to an end and they have been looking forward to welcoming the European U17 delegations. Furthermore, the Czech Badminton Federation can look forward to hosting the 2019 World Junior Championships.
After the team competition, the individual tournament will follow from 25 November, where Hope Warner is seeded first in mixed doubles with Rory Easton. The top seeded men’s singles player Christo Popov will bring his best to win the gold for France;
I go to win the title! At the European U15 championship in Kazan, I lost in final, so I won the silver, but this time I really want the gold, he told Badminton Europe.