RACHEL REACHES WELSH OPEN SEMI FINAL

Update from Rachel ...

Having spent the summer reocvering from my ankle injury, I started my 09/10 season with the Bulgarian IC in October. Since then I've played 5 other tournaments and my level has improved with each one. I was particularly pleased with reaching the semi-final of the Welsh IS last week! My english ranking is now at 4 and international ranking at 98. This puts me in a good position to hopefully gain a seeding at the Senior Nationals in February. My results have been as follows:

October
Bulgarian IC: Second round
Oxford Satallite: Winner! (beating Caroline Westley and Jo Dix)
Hungarian IS: losing narrowly in the second round to No 2 seed Bibik 21-18, 12-21, 17-21

November
Norweigan IC: losin narrowly in the second round to Jorgenson 21-19 16-21 15-21
Bucs Individual Badminton Championships: Bronze Medal
Welsh IS: Semi Finalist (beating Robertshaw and 3/4 seed Magee)

Next tournaments are Irish IC this week, followed by Turkey IS just before Christmas.

We wish Rachel the best of luck as she continues to climb the rankings!

2009/10 Season Update

Quick Update from Rachel for the blog on her plans for the coming 2009/10 season:

"Back in May this year, in the semi-final of the Slovenian International Series, I damaged 3 ligaments in my left ankle. Was quite a serious injury and its taken me the best part of three months to get over it. Am finally back in full training again as of this week.

As I've pretty much missed the whole of our summer training phase I've decided to delay the start of my season - so not starting in August like everyone else but instead spend the next 6-8 weeks training hard to get my court fitness back up. Aim is to start competing in tournaments from October, playing Bulgarian IC (early Oct; pending progress in training), Hungarian IS (late Oct), Norweigan IC, Scottish IC (Nov), Welsh IS, Turkey IS (Dec), Dunfermline Elite, Wimbledon Elite, Swedish IS (Jan) and the Senior Nationals (Feb).

During the last two seasons I've spent half the time injured. Lets hope this ankle injury is my last and see what ranking I can achieve when fit and able to compete for a whole season..."

RACHEL REACHES SLOVANIAN SEMI-FINAL!

Rachel reached the semi finals of the Slovak Open, retiring at 19-19 in the second set. She had beaten the 2nd seed in her first round and was looking and feeling strong before she unfortunately had to retire.

This is Rachels first EBU tournament semi final and a real acheivement. Who knows what would have happened if she hadn't picked up an injury!

Rachel has recently heard that she will recieve continued funding from badminton england, despite the budgets cuts, it's great to see that Badminton England still have faith in Rachel above so many others (as do we!).

RACHEL PROGRESSES AT THE ALL ENGLAND

Rachel managed to get through the 1st round of the All England prelimary tournament beating the Russian Ekaterina Ananina (world 107) in 3 sets:14-21, 21-4 and 21-11.

One game away from the All England main event she came up against the strong danish player Nanna Brosolat Jensen (world 46), unfortunately she came off second best. But with only one other English player making it this far this is further proof tat Rachel is back in form.

RACHEL WINS NORFOLK CHALLENGER!

Rachel is definately regaining her fitness and form. This week she has managed to defeat another Ashaway player, Caroline Westly in the final of the Ashaway sponsored Norfolk Open (Challenger Event).

Rachel popped by Ashaway HQ on Monday she said that the final was a close match but
that she finally came out on top winning 21-18 in the 3rd set.

Rachel was collecting some equipment and having here rackets re-strung as she was on her way to Birmingham as she has also managed to qualify for the prelimiery event of the All England, which takes place in Birmingham this week.

There's no stopping her now!

RACHEL AT THE ENGLISH NATIONALS

Rachel Howard is our Ladies Singles player and now a full time professional player, she has recently recovered from a stress fracture that had here out of action for nearly 12 months and is now building her fitness level and match sharpness to press on to where she belongs at the top of the england rankings and beyond.

Rachel is pictured here during here 1st round victory at the english nationals, due to her long term injury she was not seeded in the event and in the second round came up against the number 1 seed Liz McCann. The game was very tight and could have gone either way, but unfortunatley fitness eventually played a part and Rachel bowed out after a strong performance.