YONEX All England 2023: Birch hails resilient performance after winning start

Preston's Chloe Birch hailed a resilient performance and a winning start to the world's oldest and most prestigious badminton tournament. Birch tasted victory alongside women's doubles partner Lauren Smith to reach the second round at the YONEX All England Open, staged at Birmingham's Utilita Arena. Ad The home favourites sealed a 21-9 21-18 victory over the American pairing of Srivedya Gurazada and Ishika Jaiswal.

BadmintonImportance of Commonwealth Games not lost on Badminton star Rose25/04/2022 AT 08:41 Birch said: «We started really strong. We lost a bit of concentration in the second set but we stamped our authority towards the end and finished it strong. »It's great to get out in two games — you never want to go to three if you don't have to!" In their first meeting with the world No.39 duo, the English pair's power proved too much as they leapt into an 8-3 lead and then 11-4 at the break in the first game.

They stayed on top to win the first game 21-9 but Jaiswal and Gurazada came out swinging in the second, finding a tactical approach that troubled the home favourites. A series of close exchanges took them to 18-18, when Birch and Smith changed things up and won the final three points to wrap up victory in 35 minutes. Smith said: "(To close it out in two games) shows good character — that's something Chloe and I pride ourselves on, being pretty tough.

«We managed to turn it around, it would have been easy to let them run away with it as they were building in confidence and we weren't executing in the way we wanted to. »We were very clear on the plan, we were assessing what was going on and changed what we were doing towards the end. There was really good maturity from us as a pair to do that." It was a rousing