Kirsty Gilmour, Scotland’s best ever badminton singles player, will miss next month’s Scottish Open Grand Prix at the Emirates after being forced to undergo surgery on a long-standing knee injury.

The absence of the 23-year-old, who started this season at an all-time high of world number 15 having made her Olympic debut in Rio, is a major blow for the competition for which entries closed yesterday, but the operation which means she is likely to be sidelined until the New Year proved timely as she revealed yesterday.

“This is the first Scottish Open I haven’t played since 2009 when I was 16,” she told HeraldSport.

“There’s also a European team qualifying event which is the first thing I’ve missed since I was 16 as well. It’s kind of a tough time but at the same time it’s a good time to just get this knee right.

“It was extremely disappointing because every Scottish player wants to win this one and I’ve been so close so many times. It’s the one I’ll always want to win so it’s super disappointing not to have this shot this year, but there will be other chances and I have to tell myself that.

“If I look at the next major, major event is then it’s the (2017) World Champs in Glasgow which makes it a pretty big one.”

Gilmour had a scan on her right knee in June which revealed a meniscus tear that had been worsening for several months and was affecting her training, but after achieving her goal for the year of competing in an Olympic Games she had hoped it would heal itself with rest, only for it to re-emerge immediately she began training after a month off.

“In the run up to Rio I couldn’t really push my training up above five or six out of 10 because I knew that next day it was going to react,” she said.

“The surgeon wanted to go in and tidy it up rather than continuing ripping the knee apart then having to do a re-con mission.

“He sent an email out afterwards saying it had been a really good decision because the tear was bigger than the scan showed.”

She is as confident as she can be that the remedial work means she can get back to her best.

“It may take a while but the muscle mass I have on the rest of my leg and the conditioning I have is good because I made sure I was in good shape before going under,” Gilmour noted.

She is not, however, prepared to blame her Olympic exit in the round-robin stages on the injury when her seeding was such that she had been expected to reach the knock-out rounds.

“I don’t like to ever really have excuses and the performance on the day wasn’t good enough,” she said of the defeat by Bulgaria’s Linda Zetchiri that ended her campaign.

“OK, the lack of training in the run-up might have affected me, but I could have still won that game. That wasn’t the specific reason that I lost that,” she stated.

Now set to take on an ambassadorial at the Scottish Open Grand Prix, to which her natural bubbly enthusiasm will be well suited as she mixes coaching youngsters with sponsor promotions, meeting and greeting in hospitality and some television commentary work, the Olympic experience, from which she was determined to extract the maximum, has served her well.

“I’d learned a lot from the guys that had been in London because they forgot to enjoy it,” Gilmour pointed out.

“So when I was a bit disappointed with my performance having people to shout for when they were still competing got rid of my disappointment so much quicker.

“There was still so much team atmosphere. It takes me a day, day and a half to get my head round being knocked out. It’s a game… a really big game, but you’re only going to get this chance to be at the Olympics in Rio once so it’s head cheer-leader time. I made banners and I almost lost my voice. It was so good to have something to shout for.”

That reflects Gilmour’s instinctive inclination to make the best of whatever situation she finds herself, which promises both to serve her well in the longer term and to help the Scottish Open Grand Prix organisers before that as she turns evangelist.

“To not be playing at the Scottish Open is tough but I want to do the most to promote it,” she said.

“I know I am personally biased but all the international players I speak to reckon the Emirates Arena is so good compared to some of the other venues. It’s incredible and run amazingly well.

“Just to be a part of it in some way, I’m glad of that. Completely distancing myself from it wouldn’t be the right way to go about it. It’s one of the nicest, best run events people will come and play and it could be a test event for the World Champs with some surprising entries.”

The Scottish Open Grand Prix takes place at The Emirates from November 23-27.