Francesca Clark reaches doubles semi-finals at the U-17 Portugal Open

Francesca Clark, together with one of her coaches in the National Badminton Academy, Patrick Cassar travelled to Portugal last week to be part of the U17 Portugal Open.

Good results came to Clark’s way when she managed to reach the semi-final stage together with her Portuguese partner Jessica Almeida and only bowing down to the first seeds.

In their first doubles match, Clark and Almeida won very confidently against Portuguese pair Mafalda Avellino and Anastasia Iurkova 21-6, 21-6.

Following the first win, Clark and Almeida continued on their positive path by winning against Beatriz Araujo and Leonor Silva 21-8, 21-10.

In the semi-final, Clark and Almeida did not manage to continue their positive streak and lost their match against first seeds Carolina Mendes and Marta Sousa, 7-21, 12-21.

Mendes and Sousa went on to lose their final match against very strong Malaysian pair Carina Huang and Ella Mak.

In the singles category, Francesca faced very strong opposition when she took on Maria Wilkinson in her first match and lost 11-21, 2-21. Wilkinson managed to make it to the quarter-finals and then went down to second seed Amber Boonen from Belgium in three games.

All in all, it was a very positive competition for Francesca, who is still 16 years of age and has already achieved the national title and positive results Internationally.

Clark was a student at the National Sports School and is aiming to continue getting positive results on the international scene.