The wait for a home winner at the Yonex All England Championships goes on, but Marcus Ellis insists he and Lauren Smith are going in the right direction after they fell at the penultimate hurdle.
Not since Nathan Robertson and Gail Emms in 2005 has there been an English winner of badminton’s most prestigious competition, and the mixed doubles pairing had hoped to emulate that but fell to a 21-10 21-18 defeat to Japanese duo Yuta Watanabe and Arisa Higashino.
The world No.6 pairing, who were beaten by Ellis and Smith in a famous contest 25-15 25-10 at last year’s tournament, made sure there would be no repeat as they took control of the match from the early running and never relinquished it.
But, Britain’s world No.9 duo are getting back to their best after the disruption of the past 12 months and continue to refine their game as they set their sets on Tokyo this summer.
“In training, everything's going well, but it does take time to get that into a competitive environment, and some have got back into it better than others,” Ellis said.
“With each passing tournament, there are small improvements. We've got some other tournaments which is an opportunity to put things right from this week.”
Ellis and Smith struggled in the first game, falling to a 17-4 deficit, but won four of the next five points to begin to get into a rhythm.
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However, despite a mini revival, Endo and Watanabe continued to pile the pressure on and took the opening game 21-10 in 14 minutes.
The Brits started the second game in perfect fashion by taking the opening point, but a huge smash from Watanabe maintained an even beginning as the two pairs traded points to 3-3.
In a noticeably quicker game, both duos battled to gain the ascendancy but it was the Japanese who appeared to take control as they won a string of points to lead 11-7 at the interval.
Ellis and Smith refused to go down without a fight though, as they battled back to within one point of their opponents at 17-16.
But, they ultimately could not do enough to prevent defeat as an immensely long rally ended in a trademark Watanabe smash which put the Japanese into the final.
“We had the attack maybe twice in the whole game,” Smith said.
“The rest of the time, we were just lifting and in defence. As good as your defence is, eventually the ones attacking are going to win.
“When we switched ends, we said we needed to push up the court and take the advantage they had over us. In parts, we did do that.
“That's probably the biggest positive I could take, that we managed to slightly change the way the game was going. I still feel disappointed with the performance.”
Nevertheless, Ellis and Smith can look back on a tournament of success.
Along their journey to the last four they beat Irish pair Rachel Darragh and Paul Reynolds, as well as Denmark’s Rasmus Espersen and Christine Busch, and, notably, Mikkel Mikkelsen and Rikke Soby Hansen in a thrilling quarter-final.
Sportsbeat 2021