The phrase "a close competition between" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used when describing a situation where two or more entities are competing closely in a contest or rivalry.
Example: "The championship game ended in a close competition between the two rival teams, with only a few points separating them."
Alternatives: "a tight race between" or "a fierce contest between".
The results of the energetic analysis show a close competition between reverse osmosis and distillation for seawater desalination.
Other polls have arrived at completely different conclusions, including one that showed a close competition between Democrats Feinstein and de Leon.
The triadic patent data in Figure 11 shows a close competition between the US and the EU in terms of absolute number of triadic patents.
In any case, the close competition between the two companies is likely to make the patent issues surrounding xenotransplantation quite thorny.
Since both bovine and human enzymes display similar kcat/Km values for 7DHC and cholesterol, close competition between these substrates would be expected [10].
The first preseason game, of course, was not nearly enough to settle what has been a rather close competition through camp between Clemens and Sanchez.
One of those little zeitgeist clots that suggest creative minds running in parallel, in a highly evolved community driven by the relentless background hum of close competition – and also, all those scripts passing between studios, with ample opportunities for intellectual-property theft.
This was national television: ESPN's College GameDay, live from Auburn, Alabama, which was hosting the Iron Bowl — an annual football game between Auburn and Alabama, the fiercest college rivalry in the country, without much close competition.
The model predicts that, for length scales below 30 nm, a single sphere exhibits an over-energetic term while spheres arranged in a close-packed manner highlight a complex competition between the porosity and the intrinsic low-radius effect.
