After their quarter final win against Ibiza, Madrid faceed rivals Rinconada in the smei final of the Badminton Spain Club League.
 
The first leg last weekend in Madrid the return leg on the 27th March. A tough team sheet for both teams here as both teams although strong contain several foreigners from the UK, China, Indonesia, Singapore, and only a maximum of 3 of the 7 ties in the team match can be played with the foreigners, so a lot of time spent pre-match attempting to second guess how the other team might play their combination and trying to steal an edge from the start with your own line up.

The UK contingent of Richard Vaughan, Sarah Thomas and Casey were all flown out for this match, and in the end, with all in the hall warming up it was decided that Casey would sit out and Madrid would foucs on trying to win the critical Mixed Doubles & Men’s Doubles. Regardless of what combinations were sent out by either team, this was always going to be a close match of close ties that in the end went the way of Rinconada 4-3. 

Badminton Club Torrejon Saglas Paracuellos (3) Badminton Club Rinconada (4)

XD - Richard Vaughan/Sarah Thomas - Ruben Gordown/Bing Xin Xu 21/15 22/24 11/21
LD - Beatriz Corrales/Dolores Marco - Laura Molina/Eva Maria Romero - 21/8 21/11
MD - Richard Vaughan/Sergio Llopis - Stenny Kusuma/Ruben Gordown - 12/21 16/21
LS - Beatriz Corrales - Laura Molina 21/11 18/21 21/9
MS - Sergio Llopis - Carlos Longo 21/19 5/21 21/13
LS - Sarah Thomas - Bing Xin Xu 13/21 17/21
MS - Jesus Lorenzo - Ernesto Velazquez 23/21 17/21 14/21

Richard Vaughan commented "Today was a difficult match, Rinconada totally changed their team from previous matches and that worked for them especially in the mens doubles event. We had match points in the mixed and should have taken them. Sarah always had a tough game in her singles, but did well. We are only one match down going in to the second leg so we still have a great chance."