Globetrotting Che Lagoense badminton stars Pedro Martins and Telma Santos were busy in Central and South America last week gathering world ranking points necessary to qualify for next year’s Olympic Games in London.
Both Algarve hopefuls made it to the last four of their respective events in Guatemala, where Martins was narrowly beaten 21-17, 17-21, 21-19 by Russia’s Ivan Sozonov while Santos went out to Bulgarian Linda Zachini.
Martins got his revenge at the subsequent Brazil Open in São Paulo when turning the tables on Sozonov with a 21-12, 24-22 victory which saw the former European junior No1 into the last 16.
Having readily disposed of Peru’s Rodrigo Pacheco, he was then clearly beaten by Polish No2 seed Wacha Przemyslaw in their semi-final encounter. Santos suffered a rare opening round defeat at the hands of Scotland’s Susan Egelstaff.
Both players will now travel to the Turkish Open which begins next Thursday.
