After negotiating another formidable hurdle to reach the last 16 of the mixed doubles, the former World Championship silver medallist Imogen Bankier let her guard down yesterday and admitted she had been shocked by what confronted her when the Commonwealth Games badminton draws had been made.
Admittedly, she and Kirsty Gilmour knew that the lack of opportunity to get tournament play together ahead of the Games would leave them unseeded and therefore hostages to fortune. Even so, they could not have got a tougher draw than a first-round meeting with their former GB Badminton programme colleagues Gabby Adcock and Lauren Smith, the No.4 seeds and, after a classic encounter, the Scots were duly edged out on Wednesday night.
However, as third seeds, she and Robert Blair could have expected an easier introduction to the mixed doubles competition than a Malaysian pair, then a Singaporean pair, in both cases made up of high quality individuals who have not played much together so were difficult to analyse in advance.
It was a schedule which demonstrated that, in badminton at least, the Scots were being done no favours just because it was a home Games, a fact Bankier acknowledged in a very upbeat context. "I can't believe the draw we've been dealt," she said after she and Blair had recovered from a slow start to beat Terry Hee and Mingtian Fu 21-19, 21-11.
"We've had two really tough pairs early doors when everyone else seems to be cruising through, but it doesn't really matter. We've cleared the path of two pairs we could easily have met in later rounds and if you want to go all the way you're going to have to beat these people anyway."
If the result of the women's doubles had not been deflating enough, Bankier revealed their recovery programme meant they returned to the athlete's village at midnight on Wednesday to undergo ice baths and said it had been difficult to sleep.
"When you're on a high and playing in an atmosphere like that it's difficult to then come down and pick yourself back up again," she said. "Physically, I feel in good shape thankfully, but I am quite tired and happy that this match is now over and I've got the rest of the day to recover for tomorrow's match.
""It was good to get back out there and get winning again. It was disappointing last night, but the full focus now has to be on my mixed doubles." What was important was that the women who are central to Scotland's hopes of winning a badminton medal did not feel as if they had been let down by poor play.
"They're a quality pair; it's just a shame we met them in the first round. But we did play well and we took them right to the end and gave everything we had," Bankier observed.
"We couldn't have done much more so we're obviously disappointed, but I don't feel too gutted with the performance."
Gilmour was back on court and winning again even earlier yesterday, albeit she had a relatively straightforward task in the women's singles and the No.2 seed duly swept Yeldy Louison of Mauritius aside in just 22 minutes, conceding only 10 points.
Blair and Paul van Rietvelde are through to the quarter-finals of the men's doubles after beating Canada's Adrian Liu and NG Derrick 21-18, 21-13 and Kieran Merrilees, the eighth seed in the men's singles, made smooth progress in seeing off Northern Ireland's Tony Murphy 21-15, 21-6 to set up another Scotland-England clash in the quarter-finals with training partner Raj Ouseph.
The Englishman is seeded third but admitted that he would need to be wary. "It will be quite a different experience, I have played him quite a few times in tournaments and practice but not in a place like this. The crowd are going to get really into it," Ouseph acknowledged. "Kieran and I have roomed together before; it's always difficult to play someone you train with and are good friends with."
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