Eddie's Blog

No Comments »February 8, 2010 in 2010 Blogs by Eddie Smith

Another quiet session was expected, with the nationals taking place at the weekend. Only 8 turned up, with no coaches and shuttles being left for us to arrange our own games. I am slowly realising that the other players that do an actual warm-up are junior players or former junior players like myself.

The major news this weekend was that my entry from was in for the Glasgow Championships, I have entered the mens doubles with my doubles partner of almost 3 years now and I’m playing singles, as the search for a mixed doubles ended without success. This is the second last event of the 2009-10 season, with the last event in late April in Edinburgh. I plan to play all 3 events in April, with hopefully the opportunity to play with a quality mixed doubles partner, that I have another 7 weeks to find.

There is a lot of junior national players that are coming through the squad now, most of which will be moving to the senior ranks in the next 12 months so the opportunity to find a new partner could be there. I played against two junior national squad players with another player from the squad, losing 21-16. The other two games I played was with one of the two players I played against, which was an experience.

They looked effortless on court but get to everything, we won the opening game 21-16 without looking like we tried. The second game was littered with errors and we ended up 16-12 down but the expectation that we would win was still there, like there was another 2 or 3 levels that we could shift into to chain points together. We won 9 of the next 11 points to win 21-18, margins were tightened and shot selection was immaculate.

The main positives is my serve, zero into the net which is quite an achievement for me! The smash is slowly coming back with this all-out aggressive play. In saying all this, my expectations for the Glasgow Championships is still very realistic and somewhat low. A win in either of the two events would be considered a huge success, dependant on the draws. If I get drawn against a seeded player/partnership in the opening round (which is a REAL possibility, if rumours are true that new players are unlikely to get a favourable draw. Although there is no such thing as an “easy” game at this level.) then the expectations would be totally different. Although the prospect of qualifying is also a situation I am prepared for, it’s never been done at this tournament but I am preparing for anything and everything.

These two events this season are a taster into the scene and into top level Badminton in Scotland. Training will be whenever I can fit it around coaching, my coaching course and tournament organisation.

19 days to go.