By Michael Wojtychiw

The city’s badminton scene has been dominated by one school since its inception in 2018: Payton.

The Grizzlies had won every city championship that was held, all six city titles. This year’s city championship looked a little different than last year’s tournament, however.

This year, the tournament included a second singles and second singles draw, last year only had one singles bracket and one doubles bracket, with each team getting just one entry per bracket.

Going into the finals and third-place matches, the teams were tied with 10 team points apiece and with three finalists looking to pick up one team point each, it looked like the Grizzlies would leapfrog Whitney Young to keep its championship streak intact. The Dolphins also had three players alive at the end, but only two in title matches, with a third in a third-place match.

Young’s Sarida Silapaduriyang and Claire Tian defeated a team from Northside to win second doubles 21-19, 16-21, 21-17 and Michelle Yee took third in second singles, defeating a player form Curie 21-10, 21-17, giving the Dolphins 11.5 points. Payton’s Sophia Hong won second singles, but top-seeded and defending city champions Shefali Gupta and Ashley Strauss were upset in the first doubles final by Northside’s Nabiha Vahora and Victoria Lee in straight sets, 21-19, 21-14, meaning going into the No. 1 singles title match between Young’s Natalie Chin and Payton’s top-seeded Inika Bansal, the Dolphins were up 11.5-11.

It was only fitting that the No. 1 singles bracket would be the one that would determine whether the six-time defending champions would be dethroned.

After dropping the first set 21-10, Chin bounced back to take the next two sets 21-19, 21-19 to set off a wild celebration of Chin’s teammates mobbing her following her historic win.

“It feels amazing to get the win for Whitney Young,” she said. “I feel like keeping my mind clear and calm really helped me today. Thinking ‘This is a new game, a new point, let’s go.’

“It was so amazing to have all of my teammates’ support, especially at the end there.”

“After last year, we really decided to lock in, the kids were ready to go, wanted redemption and came in and took it,” Young coach Tita Kontodiakos said.

Chin played doubles last year, teaming up with Yee, a part of the Dolphins duo that fell to Gupta and Strauss in the doubles title match, so she was familiar with the high stakes of the city tournament.

Moving over from doubles to singles was a transition for Chin, but not one neither she nor her coach didn’t think she couldn’t make.

“I really liked moving over from doubles,” Chin said. “Doubles was really fun to get into the sport because it was my first year last year.

“I’m just mind-blown this happened, really. I wasn’t expecting it.”

“Natalie is a phenomenal player to begin with and we graduated our top singles players,” the Young coach said about the move from doubles to singles. “She was up for the challenge.

“Natalie is one of those players that you look for. When she’s locked in, she’s ready to go. She just has the right mindset. It doesn’t matter what the score is, she’s going to move forward.”

Pulling off the upset in the top doubles was a big deal for the Northside pair.

After not participating in last year’s city meet, the two entered as the third seed of this year’s tournament.

“We’ve both been coming to the city meet our entire time in school, so even though we didn’t play in it before, we knew what it was like,” Lee said.

En route to a title, they defeated teams from Amundsen and Kelly, sweeping both with ease, setting themselves up for a match with the defending champs. All they did was sweep that team as well.

“We’re both very observant, so we try to analyze everyone’s styles and adapt to how they’re playing,” Lee said.

“We really do a good job of calming each other down,” Vahora said. “So if we’re losing or struggling, we help each other pull through by not freaking out and worrying about it.”

Another thing that has been nice to see in CPL badminton is the rise of different programs.

Last year, the four title and third-place matches featured a combined four teams – Payton, Young, Roosevelt/Von Steuben and Kenwood. This year, those first three schools were again represented in final matches, but so were schools like Curie, Kelly, Mather, Northside and Hancock.

Having a number of different schools being successful is something that Kontodiakos loves to see.

“There’s definitely more of a variety of teams,” she said. “This is my third year coaching and it appears as if badminton is becoming more on everyone’s radar.

“It’ an up-and-coming sport and with that, we’re bringing in more competitors, which can only make it a better sport.”

Photos by Ashley Harris/OSA

Championship and third-place matches

Bracket play