Familiarity looked to breed reassurance for Kirsty Gilmour as she returned to the scene of her greatest sporting moment to get her World Badminton Championship campaign off to a winning start at The Emirates last night.
It had been a lengthy wait for the host nation’s top contender in more ways than one since injury prevented her from making her annual appearance in the Scottish Open Grand Prix last season, while it was day three of this event before the women’s seeds were brought into the fray after receiving first round byes.
She was already aware of the expectation that now surrounds her here after that memorable moment in 2014 when she reached the Commonwealth Games final, but that was accentuated when, just an hour or so before she took the court, her only remaining compatriots Martin Campbell and Patrick MacHugh, were eliminated from the men’s doubles.
For the more partisan, then, it was all about Kirsty, but she looked to revel in the experience, maintaining the initiative throughout against Ruparna Das, a 20-year-old Indian who had only had to play two points of her first round match before her Finnish opponent had retired injured.
It was about shaking off the cobwebs, just getting back into the swing of the old Emirates,” Gilmour said breezily.
“It’s been a while because I missed the Scottish Open, but I’m just really happy to be back. It’s different from anywhere else and you can pick out different voices in the crowd and it’s nice. I felt really good. I could feel my legs getting to things I maybe wouldn’t have before and using skills I didn’t have to be able to use before, so I can definitely feel lots of little changes in my game. I don’t know if they’re visible changes, but I can feel them and I think the last couple of weeks of training have done me really well.”
In many ways it had been the ideal match, just competitive enough to give her a work-out without any major alarms, albeit there was a reminder of the need to maintain concentration at this level when, from 18-9 ahead during the first game, she lost seven of nine points before wrapping things up with a neat sliced cross court overhead.
“It was a pretty good first round, a tough game, but I felt like it really gave me a chance to try things out, get things sorted and we’re going to start thinking about tomorrow,” was the 23-year-old’s assessment. “I haven’t even contemplated that until now, so we’re going to start looking at that.”
Not looking beyond the task must have taken considerable resolve given the amount of time she has had to kill, but Gilmour is learning the tricks of the trade in terms of getting her mindset right.
“I’ve been talking to my psychologist and we chose to look at it as having more time to get ready rather than wait around,” she explained.
Only one lower ranked player remains in the last 16 after Denmark’s Mia Blichfeldt was first to knock out a seeded player, Japan’s Sayaka Sato late last night, but she is by no means ready to accept her fate.
“I have fulfilled my seeding but I would be lying if I said I was satisfied at this point,” said Gilmour. “There’s still a lot more I want to achieve. I wouldn’t be satisfied at all with just reaching this point. If I go out and play amazing tomorrow and lose then fair play, it’s all I can do, but I will be looking to give it my all and see where it gets me.”
To that end her only meeting with He Bingjiao, a year past January when her now sixth seeded Chinese opponent was just 18 and just beginning to make an impression internationally, offers encouragement as she indicated, saying: “I’ll take a lot of confidence from that,” Gilmour observed.
Fellow Brit Raj Ouseph, who is also seeded 16th, meanwhile earned his place in the last 16 of a men’s draw from which Malaysian great Lee Chong Wei remains the only seeded casualty with a 22-20, 21-9 defeat of India’s Sameer Verma, to earn a meeting with double Olympic and five times world champion Lin Dan, who saw off Scotland’s number one Kieran Merrilees on the opening day.
“It doesn’t get much bigger than playing the greatest player that’s ever played and in the World Championships, so its very exciting and the pressure’s off me a bit, so I’ll just try and enjoy myself and see what I can do,” said Ouseph.
“I have to go into the match believing I can win this game, there are a few chinks in his armour, so I’ll believe I can win tomorrow.”
The biggest surprise of the third day’s action was in the men’s doubles where China’s top seeds Li Junhui and Liu Yuchen, were beaten by Malaysia’s Mohammad Ahsan and Rian Agung Saputro 19-21, 21-18, 21-18, but in five disciplines only six of the 80 seeds have been eliminated to this point.
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