He ensured that home interest was maintained to the tournament’s end and battled gamely to join the elite group of homegrown players to have won a Sottish Open Grand Prix title, but after a pulsating 68 minute final Adam Hall and English partner Peter Mills had to give best to Danish top seeds Mathias Christiansen and David Daugard.
Overall the run to the final offered justification of the 20-year-old Ayrshireman’s decision to buck the recent trend of leading players returning from GB Badminton’s Milton Keynes base since, seeking the right quality of playing and training partner, he took the recent decision to head south.
However a perfect weekend looked attainable when they won the opening set and led 11-10 at the interval in the second before being squeezed out 15-21, 21-19, 21-15.
“It’s a bittersweet moment,” said the youngster, who had clearly fed off what was a noisy support in the Emirates Arena.
“Obviously I’m really happy to take part in the final which has been a dream of mine since I first came here when I was six, but we were so close to winning I’m a disappointment.
“It was one of the longest games I’ve played. The Danish boys did really well to come back into it after a slow first set and we had our chances in the second, but they were just a bit too good for us in the third.”
With the more experienced Mills, who lost at the same stage last year with former partner Andy Ellis, observing that “he’s only 20 years old and has reached the final of his home Grand Prix and not a lot of people have done that,” Hall drew some consolation from how little time they have been working together.
“We only started playing together at the Japan Open in September, having only found out during the Olympics that we would be playing together and we’ve had four months together at a push so to reach a final at this stage is really good for us,” he noted.
“They (the Danes) have been a pair since I was playing European Juniors four years ago, so have the experience of knowing what’s going on between one another which Peter and I don’t have, but next time…”
A good day overall for the Danes saw second seed Anders Anderson take the men’s singles title, beating Malaysia’s Joo ven Soong 22-20, 21-14, while third seed Mette Poulsen beat Switzerland’s Sabrina Jaquet 21-18, 17-21, 21-14 in the women’s singles.
New Scotland head coach Tat Meng Wong’s Malaysian compatriots won the other events, Yin Loo Lim and Yap Cheng Wen beating compatriots Amelia Alicia Anscelly 21-17, 21-13 in the women’s doubles, while Goh Soon Huat and Shevon Jemie Lai overcame Indian top seeds Pranaav Jerry Chopra and Reddy N Sikki 13-21, 21-18, 21-16 in the mixed doubles.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here