Sinead and Caroline warm-up for Euros by impressing in Croatia

Sinead partnered her brother Ciaran to reach the last eight of the mixed doubles and went out at the same stage of the women’s doubles with her Alpha team-mate Caroline Black, beaten by top seeds from Turkey Ozge Bayrak and Neslihan Yogit 21-11 21-14.

Caroline and Sinead have now turned their attention to the European Championships in Kazan before the end of the month with qualifying being their prime objective for the season and their performances in Croatia will have given them further confidence of doing well.

In Croatia, they had a difficult opener against Sonja Langhaler and Nina Sorger of Austria and came through in three sets, winning the first with consummate ease 21-12.

As they seemed to have sealed the match in the second, the Austrians came back to snatch it 24-22 and that led to a cliff-hanger in the decider.

When it mattered most, the Irish pair who have their attention set on making the Commonwealth Games Squad, they sealed their place in the quarter-final 21-18.

A place in the semi-final, however, escaped the Alpha pair with the top seeds always in control and going on to book their place against Julie Finne-Ipsen and Rikke S Hansen, who came through 21-12 21-15.

Alpha’s other pair in the ladies doubles, Keady Smith and Alannah Stephenson were beaten by Iben Bergstein and Louise Seiersen 21-13 21-10 but the Danes went on to contest the final.

It is always difficult when one plays a team-mate in a local competition but when you travel all the way to Croatia, then it must be even more difficult on the old nerves.

This is what happened in the mixed doubles with Ciaran and Sinead Chambers ,seeded number four, had to face team-mates Ryan Stewart and Keady Smith in their opening match.

It gave the Stewart and Smith partnership an opportunity to prove that their title win in the Ulster Open last month was not a one off while the Chambers duo were keen to show that they had moved on from their semi-final defeat at the hands of Caroline Black and Stuart Lightbody.

Ryan and Keady were to snatch the opening set 21-18 but the brother and sister Chambers partnership, who are often able to play their best badminton when the pressure is really on, took the second 21-16. The decider was a tight affair but Ciaran and Sinead won a cliff hanger 21-19.

After that 42 minutes on court, the Chambers were unable to reach the semi-final when they lost out to the unseeded Turkish pair Ramazan Ozturk and Neslihan Kilic, who took 30 minutes to see off their Irish opponents 21-10 21-17.

Stuart Lightbody and Caroline Black could hardly have wished for a more difficult opening match in the bottom half of the draw when they faced the number two seeds Jones Rafli Jansen and Cisita Joity Jansen, going down 21-12 21-13 to the German pair.

In the women’s singles, Alpha’s Alannah Stephenson brushed past Georgina Bland 21-19 21-14 only to face Neslihan Yigit for a place in the quarter-final. Alannah certainly didn’t disappoint and took the Turkish player to 21-15 21-1 in a match lasting 35 minutes.

In the men’s singles, Stuart Lightbody knocked out Primoz Flis (Slovakia) 21-8 21-16 but unfortunately missed out on getting in to the main competition draw when he lost to Ramazan Ozturk 21-7 21-14.

Meanwhile, Alpha’s other players in the men’s singles Tony Murphy came close to taking his match against Gilles Tripet in to a deciding set but lost out 21-9 24-22 while Tony Stephenson recorded a 21-14 21-12 victory over Zvonimir Hoelbling but lost 21-18 21-12 to Sinan Zorlu.