YONEX All England 2023: Lauren Smith rides emotional rollercoaster on opening day

Carlisle's Lauren Smith rode an emotional rollercoaster on her return to the world's oldest and most prestigious badminton tournament. The Olympian tasted sweet victory with Chloe Birch in women's doubles and then crushing defeat alongside Marcus Ellis in mixed doubles in the first round of the YONEX All England Open. Ad Smith and Birch got the tournament off to a perfect start for the hosts with a 21-9 21-18 first-round win over American pairing of Srivedya Gurazada and Ishika Jaiswal.

BadmintonYONEX All England 2023: Marcus Ellis overcomes injury hell to return6 MINUTES AGO Their power proved too much for the world No.39 duo as they wrapped up victory in 35 minutes to delight their home crowd at Utilita Arena Birmingham. "(To close it out in two games) shows good character — that's something Chloe and I pride ourselves on, being pretty tough," said the 31-year-old. «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." Birch and Smith face a tough second-round assignment in the shape of Japan's Mayu Matsumoto and Wakana Nagahara, who dumped out Malaysian fifth seeds Pearly Tan and Thinaah Muralitharan in one of the biggest shocks of opening day. The pairings haven't met since the French Open in 2019.