Calhoun's Siddhangi Wickramasinghe badminton champ
First place winner Siddhangi Wickramasinghe of Calhoun at the Nassau girls individual badminton finals on Saturday in Plainview. Credit: Dawn McCormick
Ever since seventh grade, Calhoun’s Siddhangi Wickramasinghe dreamt of being atop Nassau badminton. She fell just short in recent years, most recently in the semifinal round to Jericho’s Sandra Chen.
On Saturday she stood against Chen again, only this time in the final. But leg cramps forced her to take a 10-minute medical timeout as Wickramasinghe trailed by one in the third game of the Nassau Individual Championships.
“I was really worried that I might fully cramp,” Wickramasinghe said. “But … I don’t want to go out through disqualification; I want to try my hardest.”
Sixth-seeded Wickramasinghe went on to win the third game with 10 consecutive points to seal a 21-15, 19-21, 21-12 victory before breaking down in tears, with a top-seeded Chen and third-place winner Hannah Cheng embracing her in an act of peak sportsmanship at Plainview-Old Bethpage JFK Middle School.
“It makes it all the more better because I feel like I worked really hard for this,” Wickramasinghe said, her voice cracking with emotion. “For a while I thought I would never be able to do it. I thought I’d just get really close, and I’m just really happy right now.”
Wickramasinghe defeated Cheng in the semifinal round, an exciting back-and-forth battle that required three games to decide a winner. The sophomore described the wins as “bittersweet.”
“I played against one of my really good friends,” Wickramasinghe said. “That’s just how the sport is… We’ve all trained together, we’ve all fought together, we’ve all grown together.”
Wickramasinghe wins Nassau!
— Michael Sicoli (@Michael__Sicoli) May 10, 2025
She battles through cramps to win 21-11 in the final game. A look at an emotional final rally. pic.twitter.com/aJDwKTSMbI
Wickramasingh’s smash stands out from everyone else around her, helping her go 14-0 this spring.
“She was focused for this tournament,” coach Keri Cinelli said. “She came in with a plan and a goal. And she reached it.”
No new champion arrived in the doubles tournament, however, as Great Neck South duo Emma Ding and Eva Westbay defeated teammates Adora and Akira Cho, 21-15, 21-12, to defend their doubles title. It’s Ding’s third consecutive doubles title and her second with Westbay.
“I’m really grateful,” Ding said. “I wouldn’t have been able to do it without my teammates, my coach and my support system.”
“I’m definitely surprised,” Westbay said. “I was nervous coming into this, because it’s hard to win twice. I’m happy I have [Ding] with me. She knows all my moves… it’s like yin and yang.”
The defending champions scored six consecutive points to seal the second game after ending the first game off a 6-1 run. Ding and Westbay both praised their teammates in Akira and Adora, who battled through a gauntlet as a six-seeded doubles team.
But Ding and Westbay made it clear that there’s no doubles standard in Nassau. The Great Neck South duo is the team to beat, and they keep showing exactly why that’s the case.
Michael Sicoli covers high school sports for Newsday. He graduated from Quinnipiac in 2022 and left with a master’s degree in sports journalism in 2023.
