London 2012 Olympian Chris Adcock has vowed to learn from his conquerors as only one Briton remains at the Yonex All England Open Badminton Championships in Birmingham.
The 23-year-old, alongside Andy Ellis, was beaten in the first round of the men’s doubles draw by Malaysian second seeds Kien Keat Koo and Boon Heong Tan 21-19, 24-22.
Adcock suffered a similar fate in the mixed doubles with Gabby White where they this time went down 21-14, 21-18 to Chinese top seeds Chen Xu and Jin Ma.
They had to qualify for the main draw, with two wins on Tuesday, and, not being able to make further progress, Adcock knows what he now has to do going forward.
“It has been a successful week,” said Adcock. “The mixed performances in the qualifiers were immaculate – it was perfect.
“We showed signs of that against the best in the world and showed we can play at their level but they had ways to counter it.
“That’s why they’re the best but we need to make sure we know how they do it, so we can counter that. But I’m really confident in our ability and our belief as well.”
Robert Blair is the only Brit left at the All England Open as he and Malaysian men’s doubles partner Bin Shen Tan beat Alvent Yulianto Chandra and Markis Kido in their first-round tie.
Marcus Ellis and Scottish partner Paul van Rietvelde bowed out at the same stage 21-15, 21-14 to Chinese Taipei pair Sheng Mu Lee and Chia Hsin Tsai.
They had pushed in both sets before falling away towards the end, leaving Ellis to call for greater consistency.
“Probably the biggest area for us to improve on is consistency in producing excellent, world-class performances,” said Ellis.
“The consistency is not just from game-to-game, but within games too. There’s areas where we switch off and go a bit passive, and maybe showing a bit of immaturity on our part.”
White later missed out in the women’s doubles with Lauren Smith, again losing to Ma who was partnered by Jinhua Tang to beat the British pair 21-16, 21-7.
They too had to come through qualifying, however White believes the pair will use the defeat for development and will continue to improve.
“We’ve already proven that we’re hopefully going to be a good pair,” she said. “That game was the next level up and we need to learn from it.”
Chris Langridge and Peter Mills were also knocked out after pushing Thailand’s Maneepong Jongjit and Nipitphon Puangpuapech to three sets, losing 21-13, 16-21, 21-8.
And Imogen Bankier, who partnered Adcock at the London 2012 Olympics, was knocked out with Bulgarian Petya Nedelcheva in the women’s doubles by Kyung Eun Jung and Ha Na Kim.
© Sportsbeat 2013