ALL champions know that they are bound to experience a bad day sometime in their career and on Sunday, during the finals of the season-ending NOB's Painting and Decorating Services-sponsored tournament at the La Promenade Gymnasium, it was Juliette Ah-Wan's turn to accept defeat in two of the three finals she participated in. If for Ah-Wan, on Sunday December 1,  was a day to forget, it will surely take a long time before Georgie Cupidon erases this day from his mind as he ran away with three victories in as many finals played.

Seychelles' men's number one Cupidon plain sailed to victory in the men's singles on a 2-0 score over Steve Malcouzane. Cupidon, who whitewashed Nicholas Jumaye 3-0 (7-0 7-3 7-5) in the men's singles final of the inaugural edition of the tournament last year, was always in command against Malcouzane, leading 3-1, 10-2, 13-3 before closing the first set 15-9.

Men's singles winner of the League for a seventh year running, Cupidon played with the same vigour in the second set to lead 5-1, 8-4, 10-7, 12-10 to win the set 15-11 and put an end to the match.

The 21-year-old, who represented Seychelles at this year's Commonwealth Games in Manchester, England, then joined forces with Michael Laure to capture his second title of the day with a 2-0 victory over the duo of Nicholas Jumaye and Steve Malcouzane in the men's doubles.

After wrapping up the first set quite easily 15-5, the small crowd present at the venue expected Cupidon and Laure to have a fairly easy afternoon, but it was not to be the case.

Jumaye and Malcouzane, who badly needed to get on the scoreboard to send the match into a third and decisive set, took an early 6-0 lead before Cupidon and Laure managed to score their first point. Jumaye and Malcouzane looked odds on to pull off a win in this set when leading 11-1, but they could not force the four points needed to close the set, presenting Cupidon and Laure with the chance to make a remarkable comeback to equalise at 13-13, 15-15, 16-16 before running away with victory 17-16.

Cupidon continued his comeback magic in the mixed doubles where he teamed up with Shirley Etienne to whitewash the pair of Laure and Ah-Wan 2-0.

Trailing 1-4, 5-8, 8-10, Cupidon went into his bag of tricks to help his team pull level at 10-10 and they then scored another two points to win the opening set 12-10.

In the second set, Cupidon and Etienne employed a half-court defence and at the same time frustrate their opponents with a more direct game based on hard smashing to equalise at 2-2 and then pull away for good to close the game at 11-5.

After his exploits on the court, Cupidon, whose boyhood hero is Guilmer Williams, the country's former number one player, had enough energy left to go up to collect his cheques from Norbert and Agnes Laporte of the sponsors for a purse of R950.

"Victory in the singles final was more important because it is my favourite event. All the same, I am happy to have won all the three finals I played today (Sunday December 1)," the player who also won the season-opener Curtain Raiser title told Sports Nation.

Paulin dethrones Ah-Wan

In the ladies' singles final, former Sportslady of the Year Juliette Ah-Wan could not defend her ladies' singles title, losing 1-2 to young Catherina Paulin.

Ah-Wan, who last year easily beat Paulin 3-0 (7-0 7-1 7-3) in the ladies' singles final, looked like repeating the feat when she won the first set 11-1. But this was all she could do in this final as Paulin doubled her determination at the start of the second set to keep Ah-Wan in check at 2-2, 4-4 and 7-7.  And when Ah-Wan, the country's number one female player, brought the score to 9-7 in her favour, Paulin opted for a time-out to refresh herself and at the same time break her opponent's rhythm, something she succeeded in doing as she equalised at 9-9 to then win the game 11-9 after Ah-Wan placed her return wide.

In the third set, Paulin, who had grown in confidence, made Ah-Wan, ladies' singles gold medallist of this year's All-Africa Senior Badminton Championship in Casablanca, Morocco, work for her points in long rallies and she finally celebrated victory 11-8.

"I did not expect to even reach the final because I had not been training regularly of late as I had been concentrating on my studies. Compared to past finals where I was so tense, I remained calm today (Sunday) and played my own game, putting pressure on Juliette to commit many mistakes.