C’WEALTH GAMES QF – Malaysia-Singapore marathon

Chan / Lai upset the seeding to send home Chrisnanta / Neo in a tight three-game match. Meanwhile a Blair / Bankier vs Adcocks semi final was ensured as neither pair struggled against tricky opponents and Langridge / Olver also joined their English teammates to pack out the draw. Ouseph and Parupalli were both on form to set up a rematch of the team semi final.

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

Robert Blair and Imogen Bankier (pictured left) set up a mouth-watering semi final against England’s Chris and Gabby Adcock. The Scottish pair dispatched Canadian 7^th seeds Ng / Chan in straight games.

“We did get off to a lot better start.” Said Imogen. “It’s where we wanted to be, in the big games. It was less tense for us and probably the crowd too.”

The next match will be against the Adcocks, with whom both of them used to partner in the England set up. The Scots have the better head to head however, and beat them in the German Open this year.

“We obviously know them very well. It’s difficult not to take history on to court, but we know we can beat them which will definitely help.”

Chris Langridge and Heather Olver (pictured right), often in the shadow of their compatriots the Adcocks, also came through unscathed.

“It was a little bit edgy, we’re very happy to have won but now we definitely need to up our level.” Heather said after.

“Now the pressure might be off us slightly, that was a tough game, we both play very different styles so it was not pretty to watch, but we’re through.”

Rajiv Ouseph showed his experience to come through to beat Scotland’s Merrilees, and has set up a rematch with Kashyap Parupalli (pictured left) of India, whom he beat in the team part of the tournament.

Parupalli had a tough draw as me took on Malaysia’s Daren Liew. “I’ve played for almost a week now so I’m set for the conditions – confident in my movement and shots. Daren is a hard opponent, we play in training and he usually beats me.” Said Parupalli.

“It was really close, I was leading in the games but I just need to think about how I play the final points.” The Indian said of his defeat in the team event.

Indian P.V. Sindhu also progressed comfortably, but her opponent for the next round, Michelle Li had a tough game against England’s Walker.

“For sure it’s exciting [that she could win a medal] but it’s difficult. I’ve been struggling this round and last with really bad nerves. I’ve not been playing my best and I need to prepare myself better mentally.” Said Li, who was nowhere near as happy as earlier in the week.

The last match in the first session of quarters, and the only one to go to three games, checking in at just over an hour, was Malaysia’s Chan / Lai (pictured right) against Singapore’s Chrisnanta / Neo.

The second seeded Singaporeans recovered well from a 21-8 hiding in the first game to force the deciding rubber, but they could not hold out against the new pair to win.

“We lost our focus and then we fell behind and got very nervous.” Said Lai Pei Jing. Chan added, “We didn’t have much confidence, it was a 50-50 match.”

The full results for the day can be found here.