Scotland off to winning start at the Euros
Scotland’s bid to qualify for the final stages of the European Mixed Team Championships got off to a winning start today at the High-Performance Sports Centre in Caldas Da Rainha.
The opening tie for the Scots pitted them against Portugal, who yesterday defeated Latvia 5-0 in their opening tie of the campaign.
But Scotland provided a much sterner test for the hosts, winning 4-1 before following up with another 4-1 win over Ukraine this evening.
Against Portugal, Adam Hall and Julie MacPherson put the Scots on the front foot, comprehensively winning their mixed doubles match 21-5 21-6 against Tomas Nero and Mariana Chang.
Debutant Joshua Apiliga lost his men’s singles to the more experienced Bernardo Atilano but Kirsty Gilmour quickly restored Scotland’s lead with a straightforward win over Adriana Goncalves in the women’s singles.
Hall returned to the court with Chris Grimley in the men’s doubles, beating Nero and Bruno Carvalho before MacPherson and Ciara Torrance beat Goncalves and her sister Sonia in the women’s doubles to round off a good 4-1 win for the Scots.
Although the Ukrainians provided more of a test the match progressed in similar fashion to Scotland’s morning win over Portugal, with Hall and MacPherson taking the mixed doubles against Viacheslav Yakolev and Mariia Stoliarenko.
It was the turn of another Scotland debutant, Ciar Pringle, to fill the men’s singles berth but Danylo Bosniuk took the win 21-16 21-15 to level the tie at 1-1.
Despite a slow start Kirsty Gilmour won her women’s singles, beating Polina Buhrova 21-16 21-7 before Grimley and Hall secured the overall win in their men’s doubles match against Yakolev and Ivan Druzchenko.
MacPherson and Torrance finished off another 4-1 win with victory over Anastasiya Prozorova and Valeriya Rudakova, leaving Scotland in second place in Group 6 behind seeds Spain, who have won both their ties (against Ukraine and Latvia) 5-0.
The Scots face Latvia tomorrow morning before completing their campaign against Spain on Saturday morning and are likely to have to win both ties to finish top of the group and earn qualification to the European finals in February next year.
You can watch live streaming of the event here: https://www.badmintoneurope.tv/en-int/page/home-badminton-europe
Full results, draws and match schedules are at www.tournamentsoftware.com