Badminton: Bankier and Adcock lose out to rivals

Scotland’s Imogen Bankier and England’s Chris Adcock failed to get on over on their British Olympic rivals when they lost 16-21, 21-15, 17-21 to Malaysia’s Peng Soon Chan and Liu Ying Goh in the quarter-finals of the mixed doubles at the Yonex All England Open in Birmingham.

An hour later and England’s Nathan Roberston and Jenny Wallwork had also gone out in the quarter-finals by 19-21, 21-14, 6-21 to the Indonesian No. 4 seeds, Tontowi Ahmad and Lilyana Natsir.

It means that coveted mixed doubles place in Team GB at this summer’s Olympics is still very much up for grabs. Bankier and Adcock are No. 17 in the world – Robertson, a silver medal winner in Athens in 2004, and Wallwork, are just two places behind at No.19. The team is selected on the May 1 rankings.

Having already beaten the Chinese World Champions and a world-class South Korean pair, Bankier and Adcock, the World Championship runners-up, hoped to make it a great three in a row.

But it wasn’t to be and Bankier, the Glasgow 24-year-old, knew a chance had been thrown away. “It was a game we could have won,” she said.