Adam is out but he certainly isn’t down
Show against second seeds delights Paisley ace
Paisley’s Adam Hall was determined to focus on the positives after he and partner Patrick McHugh fell to defeat on day two of the Commonwealth Games.
Victories over Sri Lanka and Pakistan on day one had already assured Scotland’s place in the quarter-finals of the mixed team event but they missed out on the perfect record following defeat to top seeds India.
The gents duo were up against it, with Scotland’s defeat already all but sealed by the time they took to the court against Satwik Rankireddy and Chiraf Chandrashekhar Shetty.
Despite battling hard, Hall and McHugh were powerless to avoid a 21-16, 21-19 defeat at the hands of the Indian pairing.
But Hall was happy with the manner in which the Scots competed.
He said: “From our perspective the match was pretty decent.
“We’ve only played one competitive match together so to go out there on a stage like this and play the number two seeds, we put in a pretty good performance I think.
“We do train together but playing at the Commonwealth Games is a bit different.
“We weren’t far away there. We had a lead in the first at 15-12 and then just got a bit tense and made a few mistakes, which was a bit frustrating. But we were with them the full way in the second set.
“Again, there was an error or two here or there but I really don’t think we are that far away.”
Paisley-born Eleanor O’Donnell was also in action as she teamed up with Kirsty Gilmour, from Motherwell. But again the pair were unable to match their opponents as they teamed up for the very first time.
But Gilmour, the most experienced member of the squad, paid tribute to her teammate.
“Considering myself and Eleanor have never played together, it was a very big ask against a very good pair,” said Gilmour of her new partnership.
“We had realistic expectations coming into the match against India as a whole because they are an incredibly strong badminton country.
“One of our outcomes was to try some new things out and I think we did okay under the circumstances.”