BADMINTON: A BUDDING badminton player from St Albans is celebrating after claiming victory at the National U15s Bronze Tournament in Northampton.

Duncan Williams only started playing the sport two years ago but made light work of his box, seeing off the challenge of players from Northamptonshire, Warwickshire and Yorkshire to qualify for the knockout stages.

The Beaumont School pupil was drawn against an opponent from Lincolnshire in the first knockout stage and booked his place in the quarter-finals with a 21-16 victory.

Duncan faced one of the home favourites in the quarter-finals and had to raise his game to see off his well-supported opponent 21-14 to set up a semi-final with another Northants based player.

The St Albans badminton ace took advantage of the mistakes made by his opponent to seal a 21-12 triumph and a place in the final.

The final pitted Duncan against one of the tournament’s favourites who had bought a lot of travelling support with him from Leicestershire.

Despite this Duncan made a storming start to the final and by the time the two players changed ends the St Albans youngster had opened up an 11-1 lead. The game featured some good rallies with some lovely drop shots from Duncan catching out his opponent each time. Duncan played really hard and with aggression to come out the worthy winner at 21-10. The 14-year-old’s reward for winning was more ranking points which saw him move up a grade to the Silver category.

The support Duncan received from the few Hertfordshire players that were there was fantastic and spurred him to his win.