AS hackneyed as the term has become, Scotland's women's table tennis champion remains conscious that she has the capacity to be a true role model for those born into remote communities.

The odds were stacked against Lynda Flaws, growing up in Shetland, simply by dint of the inevitable shortage of top-class competitive opportunities. Yet back-to-back national title wins speak to her capacity to overcome them and she hopes to inspire others to do the same.

"It's something I would like to show people by getting to the Commonwealths: that even if you are born somewhere remote you can still make it to major competitions," she says. "You probably have to be more dedicated at a younger age than your mainland counterparts but, if you want to do it, you can.

"You'd be surprised at the standard of sport in Shetland, but you get to a certain stage when you get to 16, 17, 18, and it becomes hard to continue to compete with people on the mainland."

Perhaps key to that is a clear capacity to turn a perceived negative into a positive. "I also think that, because it got harder for me as I grew older, when you come down to the mainland you appreciate it more because you've not had it," she says. "You know what it's been like to struggle for training or getting to as many competitions."

Now studying sports science at Glasgow University, the story of Flaws' development is something of a case study in that greatest of attributes in the field of sport, the capacity to seize opportunities as they present themselves.

"My brother is the main reason I started playing," she explains. "He got one of those plastic nets you put over the kitchen table one Christmas and we played a lot together and then Joan Smith, my PE teacher at primary school who was from the mainland and was a qualified table tennis coach, always said she could see I had good hand/eye coordination."

Parents who were, in Flaws' words, "not sporty at all" were none the less hugely supportive, investing the necessary time and money to support that assessment. They were immediately rewarded when, on her first competitive visit to the mainland, their eight-year-old daughter finished fourth in an under-12s tournament in Aberdeen. "It was never a case of setting out to be Scottish champion or to play in the Commonwealths. I just enjoyed playing," she says.

Flaws acknowledges that there was some good fortune involved, but that ability to make the most of it was vital. "I was lucky that there was quite a good table tennis club when I was growing up and I was the youngest player there so I was always up against older players," she explains.

"Each year it got harder to find somebody I could be challenged by, but Craig Christie - a very good player who had played at the Drumchapel club in Glasgow - got a job in Shetland and he moved up at just the right time for me and he became the main person I trained with. It was just lucky.

"When I was thinking about going to uni, I knew which course I wanted to do and I knew they did sports science in Edinburgh, Stirling and Aberdeen but the deciding thing for me was where I was going to get a good training environment and Glasgow was the clear choice because it's a good course as well."

It speaks to the Drumchapel club's status within the sport that it was a crucial factor in such a decision, as does the elevating of the tournament run by its organisers - the West of Scotland Open - to Grand Prix status for the first time this weekend.

It means Flaws and her Scottish rivals Gillian Edwards and Corinna Whittaker will have additional competition from south of the border, which they will welcome as they seek to hone themselves for what they hope will be their big opportunity in the summer.

They are not expecting to find out until May whether they will be included in the overall Scotland team for the Games but, having done pretty much all they could some time ago, they are now used to being patient.

"We knew from the start that our best chance of qualifying was in the team event and, when we went to Delhi last May for the Commonwealth Championships we knew one of the [Games qualifying] criteria was a top-eight finish in that tournament, and we finished seventh," Flaws explains.

"We don't know for sure and we're not taking anything for granted but we've met that criteria and then it's a case of whether they then let us play as individuals. So it's been in limbo since last May, but we just have to try to do our best in every tournament we play in and prove we should be there."

Those interested in watching them seek to do so should get along to Scotstoun this weekend.