‘To win at mixed, you’ve got to know each other inside out’
Husband and wife badminton team Chris and Gabby Adcock tell Jim White about the secret of their success
Things do not always run smoothly when it comes to badminton relationships. Take the Chinese mixed doubles pair Lin Dan and Xie Xingfang. Partners on court and off it, in their homeland they were reckoned the golden couple of the shuttlecock.
Then two years ago Lin went rogue and had an off-court dalliance. This was not just any woman he was dallying with, however. This was another Chinese badminton international. And not just any badminton international, either. She was Xie’s ladies’ doubles partner. It turned out Lin was sleeping with his partner’s partner.
“Awkward,” laughs Gabby Adcock as she tells the story in the home she shares in Milton Keynes with her husband and mixed doubles other half, Chris. “It was the talk of the circuit for months. It was like a soap opera.”
Though if international badminton were a soap opera, there would be little point the scriptwriters looking towards the Adcocks for a plot twist. The couple, who married in 2013, are heading to Australia to defend the Commonwealth title they won in Glasgow four years ago as solidly together as ever.
If you want a hint of how unified their purpose is you only need catch them training at the National Badminton Centre just down the road from their house. Here one of their regular exercises involves Chris standing on a box and smashing dozens of shuttlecocks down at his wife positioned no more than three feet from him on the other side of the net. Since he can fire the rubber and feather missiles at breathtaking speeds, this is some test of their relationship. Yet throughout his barrage, Gabby does not once utter a word of objection – and she grins broadly when she successfully fends off all his ordnance.
“Yeah, it may look as if I’m getting rid of my aggression,” says Chris. “But it’s actually about Gabby’s defensive work. Mixed doubles used to be about targeting the woman. But these days women can defend as well as the men, so it’s a much more tactical thing. It’s more about out-manoeuvring your opponent than trying to smash the woman off court.”
Last summer Jamie Murray and Martina Hingis won the Wimbledon mixed doubles title after deciding to enter the tournament together the week before. Until they stepped on to the All England Club turf, the pair had never hit a ball on the same court. According to Gabby, that could never happen in badminton. This is a sport that requires intimacy.
“Scratch pairings rarely appear,” she says. “It’s very different from tennis. The speed of rotation round each other is so vital. You’ve got to know each other’s moves by heart. There are so many set-pieces. It takes time to get an understanding. Really, to win at mixed, you’ve got to know each other inside out.”
And there is no question Gabby and Chris Adcock know each other inside out. They have been romantically connected playing partners since they were teenagers (though Chris did have a short, unsuccessful collaboration with Imogen Bankier at the London Olympics). They have won world and Commonwealth titles together. Now ranked sixth in the world, for the past five years they have spent every minute of every day together: training, touring, playing. Then, after a hard day’s rallying, walking their excitable dog, Bowser.
“People say, ‘How you do it?’” says Chris. “But we have the same drive, the same motivation. If one of us sets the alarm to get up for a run at 6am, you don’t have to worry about disturbing your partner: you know you’re getting up together.
“It’s never a case of going out for dinner and your partner saying, ‘Go on, have a glass of wine’. We’re on the same regime. And we get to travel together. A lot of people in the sport who have families at home, when they’re away so much it can be hard. We get to go to some really nice places – and some not so nice places – together.”
The nice place they are heading to for the Commonwealths is Australia’s Gold Coast. Here, although the Chinese, Indonesians
‘In Glasgow I stood on top of the podium alongside my wife. There’s not a lot better than that. I want that feeling again’
and Danes, the leading exponents of the international circuit, will be missing, they will face stiff competition from Indian and Malaysian pairs. Plus their first encounter is against the Australians.
“Hoping to get some revenge for the Ashes there,” smiles Chris.
But as well as trying to retain their title, the pair will have an added responsibility Down Under. After a medal-free showing at the Rio Olympics, badminton had its funding fiercely pruned by UK Sport. Although the two did not receive any direct backing from central funds (through sponsorship and prize money on the lucrative Far Eastern tour, they earn way above the support threshold) they could feel the effect of the cuts all around them.
“It was a kick in the teeth for our sport,” says Chris. “The squad was halved and the biggest loss for us was the support staff. We used to have three physios on site, a weights coach, a sports psychologist, all the services were there. We lost every single one.”
So there is an added responsibility on them when they step out on the Gold Coast courts: not only are they looking to retain their title but, as the best hope of securing the medals that will restore some of the lost funding, on the success of their rallies and smashes hangs much of the future of the sport they love.
“Actually I wouldn’t say there’s any additional pressure,” says Chris. “We’ve always put that pressure on ourselves to succeed.” His wife agrees.
“We feel we’ve done all we can. That’s all we’ve ever said,” she says. “Obviously if I can help the sport more because of my achievements, that’s a bonus. But you can’t worry about external things beyond your reach. Because that will affect your performance.”
Though they must think there is something odd about the way funding is allocated. When we meet, Chris admits he has been glued to the Winter Olympics. He must surely feel a twinge of envy when he sees a sport such as skeleton, played by no more than 150 people in Britain, so heavily endowed, while a hugely popular participation activity such as badminton goes unassisted.
“I wouldn’t say I’m jealous,” he says. “The funding model that UK Sport followed is all about medals, we understand that. Maybe, though, we are seeing a change of perspective, looking at participation sports without medals and saying, ‘why aren’t we funding that?’ Hopefully high participation sports like ours, or basketball, will get more funding.”
Money matters, however, will be put to one side when they step on to the Gold Coast courts. Here the focus will be on themselves, on pursuing a shared ambition.
“In Glasgow I stood on top of the podium alongside my wife,” Chris says. “There’s not a lot better than that. I want that feeling again. And the only way to do that is to be together. That’s where our relationship really helps.”