YONEX All England 2023: Lane vows to bounce back

Exmouth badminton star Ben Lane vowed to come back stronger after tasting defeat in his opening round clash at the YONEX All England Open in Birmingham. Lane and partner Sean Vendy battled hard but fell 21-18 17-21 21-16 to fifth seeds Liu Yu Chen and Ou Xuan Yi at the Utilita Arena, failing to match an opening round victory for the English pairing a year ago. Ad It was the third time this year that Lane and Vendy had lost to the Chinese pairing, though this was by far the closest of their meetings in 2023 — the first time the duo have taken a game off their rivals.

BadmintonYONEX All England 2023: Vendy left rueing fine margins24 MINUTES AGO And Lane believes that despite a tricky start to their season, the pairing will push on to continue their rise up the rankings from 2022. «I thought we played some good badminton out there, but we were just a bit too patchy,» said the 25-year-old. «We played some very good badminton at the end of the second to get us back into the game because we knew we were a set and 16-11 down.

»It's always a bit gutting when you train hard up to a big event and lose, but it's definitely coming. We feel like we're playing well and training well." Vendy added: «We're training really hard and we were in really good shape coming in. We're obviously gutted, it was a really tough draw but I'm sure there are a lot of positives to take.

It's a bit raw now. »We started off a bit passive [in the third game]. We were just letting them come onto us a little too much.