Badminton: Young Will to the Four

Aug 22 2007 by Evening Chronicle

DISABLED badminton starlet William Smith narrowly missed out on medal glory in his first Four Nations Championships.

The 17-year-old from Prudhoe suffered a 21-20 loss to a Scottish player in the last eight at the event in Cardiff.

The defeat, however, looks set to spur the youngster on to greater successes in the future, with his sights now fixed upon gaining further experience at tournaments in Ireland in November and England in February.

Smith said: “I need to work on my fitness as well as my racket skills and hopefully that will pay off for me in the future.

“There were a lot of strong competitors from Scotland and Ireland and Wales.”

The firm for which Smith’s father Paul works, SCA Hygiene, have raised £2,000 in sponsorship to help the youngster attend tournaments.”