Badminton: Whyte Trophy clean sweep

New Zealand has wrapped up badminton's the Whyte Trophy series against Australia 3-0, winning the third test 4-1 at Stadium Southland in Invercargill yesterday.

The badminton test started badly for the Kiwis as they dropped the first set of the women's doubles.

However, Nicole Gordon and Sara Runesten-Petersen staged a comeback to win the next two sets for an eventual 4-15, 15-9, 15-3 over Kate Wilson-Smith and Kellie Lucas.

New Zealand made one change to its lineup from the previous 5-0 test wins at North Harbour and Hamilton, bringing Craig Cooper from Waikato in for his first Whyte Trophy appearance in place of Dan Shirley in the men's doubles.

The combination of Boyd Cooper and Travis Denney won Australia's first match of the series, beating Craig Cooper and John Gordon in the doubles.

The first set of the match could have gone either way with the Kiwis fighting back from an early deficit before equalling the score at 13-13 and 14-14. Eventually the Australians won the set 17-16 and then raced through the second 15-5.

Rebecca Bellingham won her third match of the test, beating Australian No 1 Lucas in straight games 11-5, 11-6.

Shirley and Runesten-Petersen scored their third win of the series over Denney and Wilson-Smith in the mixed doubles.

The Kiwi pair won the first set 15-4 dropped the second 12-15 and then the third 15-12.

In the men's singles Australia substituted Stuart Gomez for Stuart Brehaut but still lost easily to Geoff Bellingham. The Kiwi won the match 15-5, 15-6.

Some of the New Zealand players will travel to tournaments in Asia before going to the West Australian International in Perth at the end of the month.