C’WEALTH GAMES R16 – Second chance for last night’s heroes

A good afternoon for the home nations, both Bankier and Gilmour separately made up for last nights disappointment. Bankier and opponent Adcock from that match both had tricky matches against Singapore and Malaysia respectively.

By Michael Burke, Badzine Correspondent, live from Glasgow.  Photos: Yohan Nonotte for Badmintonphoto (live).

Kirsty Gilmour (pictured left) came out fighting this afternoon as she cruised passed Yeldy Louison of the Mauritius. She said after, “Yes I’m very glad that was pretty straight forward.”

After last night it was important that she recovered well, which she did. “We had an ice bath last night so I feel alright. It’s a fine line between wanting to get used to the arena and just getting off and rested for the next round.”

A rest she will have however, where she will have a much tougher opponent in Michelle Chan (pictured right) of New Zealand, who beat Wales’ Turner.

Aware that she’ll be up against the home crowd, Chan relished the prospect.

“I’m always up for a challenge, we had a really good pool match in the team competition. I love the crowd, I know it’s mostly Scottish, but who would want to play in front of an empty stadium?”

Blair and Bankier (pictured right) had a much trickier draw, and played very well to come from behind in the first, eventually winning comfortably.

Robert said of their Singaporean opponents, “We didn’t know too much about the pair, they surprised us with the strength of their defence, it made the points very difficult to finish off.”

Bankier, who had a hard finish late last night, said it definitely had an effect on todays match, “It was a really slow start today. It was a late night last night and the intensity was very low to start with today.”

Her opponent from last night, Gabby Adcock, playing with Bankier’s ex-partner Chris Adcock, also had a potentially tricky draw against Wee Kiong Tan and Vivian Kah Mun Hoo.

Chris said of the match, “It was a good game, very tough. They’re two very good players, to beat them in two straight is a relief.”

Gabby added, “It could have been a real banana skin. It had the potential to be a very scrappy match so just glad we got through that.”

The Malaysian pair was clearly disappointed, with Tan saying, “They’re a strong pair. We don’t usually play together, so we were rusty, our communication wasn’t good. Tactics wise we didn’t really get it right as we’re just not used to mixed doubles.”

For England, both Walker and Ouseph got through tight matches in their singles draw, with Rajiv setting up an exciting encounter tomorrow against Kieran Merrilees of Scotland.

He said of that match, “It’s difficult to play against a friend and someone you train with, but I’m definitely looking forward to it.”

The full results for the day can be found here.