European Badminton Championships A RVBA (supported by Memory Lane Cakes) team of 4 travels both North and South next week to converge on Manchester for the No.1 Event in Europe, The Yonex European Badminton Championships.

A bi-annual event that for the first time this year Badminton Europe introduced stringent and tougher world ranking qualification criteria to all 5 of the draws. A 12 month qualification phase prior to the event is undertaken to produce what is a smaller but now more elite draw for the lucky few who have performed well enough within the year to make the end of season trip to Manchester.

Youngster Sarah Thomas has the fantastic achievement of qualifying for all 3 events in Manchester, demonstrating her versatility and results across the last 12 months. Sarah opens up first in the Ladies Singles with a first round encounter against the strong Ukrainian and Beijing Olympian Larisa Griga, before then teaming up in the Ladies Doubles with her older sister Rachel Thomas for a first round encounter against Alzbeta Basova & Sarka Krizkova from the Czech Republic.



In the Mixed Doubles, 2010 Welsh National Badminton Champions, Richard Vaughan and Sarah Thomas continue their fine form from the last two seasons having qualified for last year’s BWF World Badminton Championships in India then earlier this season briefly topping the European Badminton Mixed Doubles ranking list. Richard & Sarah open up against the Belarusian pair of Konakh/Zaitsava with a then likely last 16 encounter awaiting against the No.4 seeds Durkin/Vislova from Russia.


Finally making up the RVBA team is the internationally based Scotsman Alistair Casey, Alistair qualifying for the Men’s Singles and a recent runner up at last month’s Kenya Badminton International. Alistair takes on Turkeys Murat Sen in the first round, another good draw for the RVBA players.

European Badminton Championships Draw can be found here.