MacGregor and Pringle win silver at Irish Open

Jack MacGregor and Ciar Pringle warmed up for the Scottish Open in fine style this week by reaching the final of the Forza Irish Open.

The unseeded pair took the silver medal after losing out to the second seeds, Korea’s Choi Solgyu and Seo Seung Jae, in today’s final.

But they can be happy with their performances and speaking after the match this afternoon Pringle said:

“It’s been very good week for us, winning some tough matches and staying composed under pressure.

“We didn’t quite manage to keep up the top form we had from previous games in today’s match but still played to a high quality.

“By playing more high level opponents and getting the chance to work on our game and as a partnership we feel that this will boost our confidence and maybe be the key to getting that first title.”

After a first round bye the Scots started their campaign with a 21-15 21-17 win over Vinson Chiu and Christopher Kan of the USA before coming from a game behind in the quarter-final to beat Irish third seeds Joshua Magee and Paul Reynolds 8-21 21-12 21-15.

Another three-game win in the semi-final over Bulgaria’s Alex Vlaar and Dimitar Yanakiev 11-21 21-18 21-18 set them up for today’s final where a 21-17 21-12 loss meant the Scots had to settle for silver.

But they will take confidence from their performances into their Scottish Open campaign next week, where they face an encounter with Commonwealth gold and Olympic bronze medallists Marcus Ellis and Chris Langridge in the first round.

“We are definitely looking forward to the Scottish Open,” said MacGregor.

“We have a very tough draw playing the number 1 seeds Chris and Marcus but it will be an exciting experience and definitely a chance to learn and see how we can play against the world’s best.”

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