Who to look out for in the 2025 Scottish International Masters Championship this weekend!
The 2025 Scottish International Masters Championship is just days away and bigger than ever. The Tournament starts the 2025 Badminton Scotland Calender with a bang as the tournament becomes the largest Badminton Scotland event outside of the Scottish Open with 307 players from 13 countries.
Scotland accounts for nearly half of these players standing for 148 of the competitors with many seeded in their event categories.
Here are some of the top players to keep an eye out for across the weekend!
Full Draw Details are linked here: 2025 Scottish International Masters Championships | Badminton Scotland
European Gold Medallist Mark MacKay is top seeds in the Mens Singles 45 category and the Mens Doubles 45 category alongside Craig Lamb. The Mens Doubles 45 category features a full Scottish seeds with Ross Campbell and Frazer McCulloch at second seed and Warren Anderson and Alun Evans at third seed. MacKay will be defending his title in both the Mens Singles and the Mens Doubles from 2024.
Triple European Medallist Dan Travers sits at top seed and will also be looking to defend his win in the mens singles in the 65s category. Travers pairs up with Christine Black who took the mixed doubles win last year with partner Phil Richardson. Black and Travers took gold in the European Senior Championships last September and will be looking to replicate the success on home soil.
Reigning Scottish International Masters Champions Lynne Campbell and Helen Milne are top seeds for the Womens Doubles 50s with new entries Jane Ashfold and Caz Lee of England in second.
Bruce and Kirsty Flockhart are a new pairing to the Scottish International Masters Championships, and are drawn as first seeds in the Mixed Doubles 45 category ahead of Danish pairs Carsten Loesch and Ulla Pedersen and Jesper Ingemann and Line Aarup Herbst in second and third. Bruce Flockhart also is second seeded in a very competitive Mens Singles 50s category below Carsten Loesch of Denmark, MS bronze medallist at the World Senior Championships in 2023.
Mixed Doubles 50s is another competitive category with six seeds and plenty of Scots in the top spots. Morten Aarup Herbst who took bronze at the World Senior Championships in 2023 in the Mixed Doubles category leads the seeding with new partner Majken Asmussen. Scotland’s Craig Robertson is second seeded, teaming up with England’s Jane Ashfold. Scotland takes the third/fourth seedings with Craig Lamb and Carole Begg and Frazer McCulloch and Karen MacDonald. Making up the fifth/sixth seeds are Ross Groundwater and Carolyn Young of Scotland and Mikael Tornemo and Helle Mathiasen of Sweden and Denmark.
The tournament has seen an expansion as a result of demand with the introduction of a 70s age category with four events: Mens Singles, Womens Doubles, Mens Doubles and Mixed Doubles. England takes the majority of top seeds in the doubles with Peter Emptage and John Gardner in the Mens Doubles, Brenda Creasey and Sylvia Penn in the Womens Doubles and Chris Hockey and Brenda Creasey in the Mixed Doubles.
In the Mens Singles the top three seeds are Swedes with Bo Christer Bertilson at first, Cheddi Liljestron at second and Curt Ingedahl at third/fourth with Ewen Macdonell.
The Womens Singles seeds are dominated by England with only one Scottish woman seeded in across all the age categories – Frances Mclure in the Womens Singles 35 with England’s Hannah Seagraves at second. Sian Williams of Ireland also sits at top seed in the Womens Singles 60s category with Susan Tooke from England in second seed.