MONTREAL – Eliana Zhang, a third-year medical student at McGill University, extended her perfect season with a pair of 2-0 decisions in singles, leading the Martlets to an upset victory over division-leading Montreal to capture the RSEQ women's badminton team championship, Saturday, at the Centre Sportif de l'UQAM.
 
It was McGill's first intercollegiate badminton title since 1983. The Martlets had entered the tourney seeded second in the seven-team RSEQ conference, with an 8-4 record. They defeated third-place Sherbrooke 4-1 in the semifinal round, then knocked off UdeM 3-2 in the final. The division-leading Carabins had entered the weekend with a 12-0 record. They edged fourth-place Laval 3-2 in the semifinal before crossing paths with McGill.
 
Zhang, a 22-year-old native of Ile-Bizard, Que., upped her unblemished record to 24-0 over her two years. This season, she is currently 10-0, including a 7-0 mark in singles, 1-0 in doubles and 2-0 in mixed doubles. Last season, in her first year with the McGill varsity squad, she posted a perfect 11-0 record in singles and a 3-0 mark in mixed doubles. Also a member of the Quebec provincial and Canadian national teams, Zhang was named last season as the RSEQ women's badminton player of the year and the most outstanding rookie in the Quebec-based conference.
 
In the women's semifinal round over the past weekend, McGill defeated Sherbrooke 4-1, taking all three singles matchups and splitting a pair of doubles.
 
In singles, Zhang cruised to a 21-6, 21-7 victory over Maeli Page. Second-seeded Lareina Shen (12-21, 21-18, 21-12) of Halifax, and third-seeded Sammi Pan (21-9, 21-17) of Belmont, Mass., also won their matches.
 
In doubles, the McGill top-seeded duo of Eve Wang from Ottawa and Julia Chen of Toronto, came from behind for a 2-1 victory, dropping the opening set 20-22 before rallying to win 21-18 and 21-10. The only setback for the Martlets was in the second-seeded doubles match, where Gabrielle Chen of Downers Grove, Illinois, and Yifan Wu of Waterloo, Ont., lost 16-21 and 17-21.
 
In the team championship final against Montreal, the Martlets prevailed 3-2.
 
Zhang won her singles matchup easily against Kalyanne Truong, 21-8 and 21-3. Then Shen lost her singles round to Mary-Anne Ke 12-21, 6-21. But in the third-seeded singles, Pan rallied from a 12-21 first match setback against Melissa Douangboulom to win the next two, 21-17 and 21-12.
 
The Carabins took the second-seeded doubles match over McGill's team of Chen and Wu. The Martlets duo prevailed in the first set 21-18 before stumbling 17-21 and 16-21.
 
On the men's side, UQAM won the conference team title with a 3-2 victory over Montreal. The McGill Redbirds defeated ETS 5-0 in the quarter-final but fell 4-1 to Montreal in the semifinals.

Against ETS, all three seeds won in men's singles (Nicolas Germain, Andy Bai and Joshua Xu). As well, both duos came away victorious in men's doubles (Pierre-Luc Jaeger / Yi Jia Zhou; and Alex He / Sean Yin).

Against Montreal, the lone McGill victor was in men's singles, where third-seeded Joshua Xu, a mechanical engineering senior from Montreal, won the first set 21-18 and was trailing 11-10 in the second, when his opponent retired.

The RSEQ season concludes with the individual and mixed championships, slated for Mar. 10-12 at Université de Montréal.

SEE COMPLETE RESULTS
 
RSEQ STANDINGS
 
SOURCE:
Earl Zukerman
Sports Information Officer
Athletics & Recreation
McGill University
514-983-7012
www.mcgillathletics.ca
earl.zukerman@mcgill.ca
@EarlZukerman (twitter)