Badminton: Perth sports centre to handle worthy championship clashes

Jan 23 2009 by Gordon Bannerman, Perthshire Advertiser Friday

SCOTLAND star Imogen Bankier is seeded to retain both her titles at the Yonex National Badminton Championships at the Bell's Sports Centre in Perth from January 30 to February 1.

Bankier won the women's doubles last year with Emma Mason, who is only just returning to action following an Achilles injury and is limiting herself to just the mixed doubles.

Bankier will defend her half of the title in partnership with Edinburgh's Jillie Cooper, who won the Bank of Scotland International doubles title with Mariana Agathangelou.

Bankier and Cooper will be in opposition in the mixed doubles.

Defending champions Bankier and Renfrew's Watson Briggs are top seeds while Andrew Bowman (Bellshill) and Cooper are second seeds.

Both men are bidding for a third mixed doubles title with Briggs having won on the last two occasions.

Mason is seeded fourth in the mixed with Livingston's Thomas Bethell.

In the men's singles defending champion Craig Goddard (East Kilbride) is top seed ahead of Kieran Merrilees, who is No. 2 and Gordon Thomson (both Glasgow) at No. 3.

Goddard defeated Merrilees on the way to the recent Yonex Dunfermline Open final but 19-year-old Merrilees, the runner-up at the Welsh International, has been given the vote for men's singles duties at next month's European team championship in Liverpool.

Eight-times champion Bruce Flockhart (Lochgelly) is number six while Commonwealth Youth Games bronze medallist and Bank of Scotland Under 19 singles and doubles champion Martin Campbell (Edinburgh) is eighth seed.

Defending women's singles champion Susan Hughes is favourite to retain her title with Linda Sloan second seed.

Teenager Kirsty Gilmour (Bothwell), the Bank of Scotland Under 19 National champion, is fourth seed.

Bowman and David Gilmour (Bothwell) are top seeds in the men's doubles with Thomas Bethell and Watson Briggs seeded to meet them in the final. Bowman is bidding for a third men's title and Gilmour a fifth.