AWEEK may be a long time in politics, but so is a year in top-class badminton if Imogen Bankier's assessment of how it feels to be defending the mixed doubles title at the Scottish Open Grand Prix today is anything to go by.
Since Bankier won the event with Robert Blair last year, she has embarked on a new and promising women's doubles partnership with the country's leading singles player Kirsty Gilmour that could enhance the Olympic prospects of both.
At the same time, she and Blair were working their way up the world rankings in pursuit of the best possible seeding at the Commonwealth Games.
Since all three of them emerged from Glasgow 2014 with medals it has been a highly satisfactory season, but perhaps partly because the same venue, the Emirates Arena, was the setting for the Games, winning the Scottish title seems a long time ago to the 27-year-old.
"It doesn't really feel like we're defending a title because so much has happened since the last time," Bankier said after she and Blair defeated German third seeds Peter Kesbauer and Isabel Herttrich to reach the mixed doubles final.
It is the only one in which home players will be in action after Gilmour failed to capitalise on a match point in her singles semi-final against Japan's Sayaka Sato and then suffered further disappointment when she and Bankier were overpowered by the top-seeded Bulgarian sisters Gabriela and Stefani Stoeva in the final match of the day.
Ahead of facing Danish No 4 seeds Niclas Nohr and Sara Thygesen with Blair, Bankier said: "We came in with little expectation, but of course we want to win in front of a home crowd and keep the memories good from the Commonwealths in this arena."
The end of the Games was odd, taking the form of knockout competitions with third place play-offs. Gilmour ended her singles tournament slightly deflated after losing in the final, while Bankier and Blair finished on a high after taking the bronze medal.
Some time off has been taken in the interim, with Blair, now 33, admitting he needed think about whether he had the motivation to continue. Not surprisingly, there has been a rustiness to their play this week and on top of that Blair, like Gilmour, has also been struggling with a virus.
It seemed those combined factors might have taken their toll in yesterday's semi-final as Blair and Bankier let slip an 11-6 lead to allow Kesbauer and Herttrich to take the opening set.
However, the Scots responded impressively, taking the first eight points of the second to claim near unstoppable momentum on their way to a 17-21, 21-15, 21-14 victory. "It was good to come back from a set down," Bankier said. "We managed to match their intensity and it's great to get to win here in a home venue and get through to the final.
"We've played this Danish pair before and had a really tough match against them, so we know it will be difficult, but I think we have the game to beat them.
"I think we'll have to use our experience to match them, but a home crowd will definitely lift us and we can raise our intensity a little bit from today."
Gilmour was beaten in the singles final last year but was top seed this time round. She said after losing to Sato: "I'm so disappointed. It was the difference between the shuttle hitting the strings of the racquet and hitting the frame, otherwise I would be in the final and not feeling this way. But you learn from it and it's on to the next thing, I guess."
Gilmour admitted, however, that the Stoevas had simply been too strong for her and Bankier in the doubles.
"They're a well-established pair who know what they're doing," Gilmour said. "We have a lot of things that other teams don't but it was so difficult to get it through them. They were like brick walls today. With a bit of fine-tuning we could push them, though, so we're disappointed, but encouraged."
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