WHITE NIGHTS INT’L – Konon leads Germany to 3 titles

Olga Konon beat former top ten player and home favourite Ella Diehl to take one of three titles for Germany at the White Nights International Challenge on Sunday in Gatchina, Russia.

Photos: Badmintonphoto (archives)

With most of the current biggest names in Russian badminton busy 1500km to the east at the Universiade in Kazan, home shuttlers were, for the first time, unable to take a single title at the White Nights International.

Olga Konon (pictured), after a title drought in 2012, is clearly back in form as she has just picked up her second International Challenge title in 3 finals appearances in 2013.  The Belarus-born shuttler beat Ella Diehl in straight games to add the White Nights to her collection of Challenge titles.

Germany would take three on the day as Isabel Herttrich prevailed in both mixed and women’s doubles.  Her mixed doubles victory, with Peter Kaesbauer, was one of two losses for Russia’s  Sergey Shumilkin.

Shumilkin again came up short in the men’s doubles, where he and partner Andrej Ashmarin went down in straight games to Baptiste Careme and Ronan Labar (pictured) of France, who only recently renewed their partnership.  Careme has found Gatchina to be a lucky venue, as he walked away with two titles at last year’s edition, winning one final at the expense of his current men’s doubles partner.

The men’s singles final was dominated by Finns, who were playing not far from home, in relative terms.  Eetu Heino was able to prevail over his top-seeded compatriot Ville Lang in the longest match of the day, and the only one to go to three games.

Final results
XD: Peter Kaesbauer / Isabel Herttrich (GER) [1] beat Sergey Shumilkin / Viktoriia Vorobeva (RUS)  24-22, 21-15
WS: Olga Konon (GER) [3] beat Ella Diehl (RUS)  21-17, 21-14
WD: Isabel Herttrich / Carla Nelte (GER) [2] beat Audrey Fontaine / Emilie Lefel (FRA) [1]  22-20, 21-12
MS: Eetu Heino (FIN) [7] beat Ville Lang (FIN) [1] 21-14, 17-21, 21-9
MD: Baptiste Careme / Ronan Labar (FRA) beat Andrej Ashmarin / Sergey Shumilkin (RUS) [4]  21-17, 21-16

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