Imogen Bankier's injured right ankle successfully survived its first competitive test yesterday to justify her view that she has made a "mini miracle" recovery to be able to contest the Scottish Open Grand Prix at the Emirates Arena.

The 2011 world championship silver medallist admitted to having initially had a real scare when the damage was revealed as a ruptured ligament. Drastic as that sounded, though, it was, in a sense, something of a lucky break.

"I think because it was a complete snap, it was better than just a little tear, which would have just niggled away as it tried to heal," she explained after she and her fellow Scot Robert Blair had safely negotiated their first round tie in the mixed doubles, beating French pair Baptiste Carem and Anne Tran 21-13, 17-21, 21-9.

"When it's a complete snap, it's gone and what I've been told is that there are two other ligaments that will still support the ankle, so as long as you re-calibrate the ankle to cope with that it should be okay. It was quite dramatic. I got the scan last Thursday and, when I heard on Friday it had snapped, I thought that was me gone, but different people respond differently and because my ankle was quite strong in the first place it seems to be able to cope.

"I was pre-empted on the different things that could be wrong and the different timescales that could have been involved and what happened was the best case scenario.

"I knew that because I could walk, it wasn't awful, but the physios told me it was absolutely remarkable how well it had responded. It seems to have been a bit of a mini miracle. There's certainly been a remarkable improvement so we'll see how it responds today because tomorrow I could potentially have four games if all goes well."

Any other outcome would have been doubly devastating because it would have denied her both the opportunity to play in front of her home support this week and, in the next few weeks, to start the project of forming a new doubles partnership with Kirsty Gilmour, Scotland's leading singles player.

"I am really excited. I've been playing with Petya [Nedelcheva from Bulgaria] and that's gone really, really well, but our partnership was always based around the European Championships," said Bankier. "We've played 10 tournaments and we will continue to play, but we've got a good ranking now in the top 25, so we've got to play a couple here or there to defend some points and try to get a second seeding in Europe.

"We'll still push for that with a couple of tournaments in the New Year, but from next week I'll play with Kirsty as we prepare for the Commonwealth Games and we've now got 10 tournaments to fit in before July, so it's going to be busy."

They need to do that to try to secure the highest possible seeding in the Commonwealth Games draw and Bankier believes their styles are well suited to blending quickly.

"Because Kirsty's a singles player her court coverage is extremely good and that's what I need because I'm more of a natural net player so I need someone who can cover me well," she said. "She's also quick, so her attacking style is quite good for me, but we've got to practise together and that's the key for us now looking forward towards the New Year because we're not going to be good without practise."

In the meantime, though, the focus is on performing well this week and Bankier is relishing the opportunity provided by playing in her home city.

"They get so many people in and it's nice to play in front of friends and family so it is a dress rehearsal for the Commie Games," she said, albeit the crowds have yet to arrive in large numbers.

Gilmour, meanwhile, got her tournament under way in dominant fashion, seeing off the Czech Zuzana Pavelkova 21-10, 21-8.

She had been the lone Scot in the main women's singles draw while her only compatriot still in the men's singles is Kieran Merrilees, her fellow reigning Scottish champion, who beat England's Sam Phillips 22-20, 21-14 to fulfil his 14th seeding by reaching the third round. He now meets Malaysia's Chan Kwong Beng who edged out Scott Evans, the seventh seed from Ireland, 28-26, 21-19.

There was also an encouraging showing in the men's singles by Josh Neil, the Scottish under-19 champion, who was far from outclassed in his second-round tie by the eighth-seeded Indonesian, Andre Kurniawan Tedjono, in losing 21-16, 21-18.