Scotland's Imogen Bankier and England's Chris Adcock had to settle for a bronze medal to go with their Yonex BWF World Championships silver

23 April 2012

...after losing another three-game battle in the mixed doubles semi-finals at the European Championships in Karlskrona.

The leading GB pair, who are No. 10 in the world rankings, went down 21-17 17-21 21-19 against Poland’s 2010 European silver medallists Robert Mateusiak and Nadiezda Zieba.

Bankier and Adcock led 11-8 in the opener but the Polish pair, back  to their best form after Zieba’s return from injury, turned it round to lead  12-11 and went on to take the opener 21-17.

But Bankier and Adcock responded by taking the second by the same score and it was anybody’s contest in the decider with the score 6-6 before Mateusiak and Zieba started to pull away and take a 17-8 lead. Adcock and Bankier responded with five points in a row as they pulled right up to trail by just one point at 20-19 before the Poles won it on their third match point after 57 minutes.

The Anglo-Scottish pair, who beat GB rivals Nathan Robertson and Jenny Wallwork in yesterday’s nail-biting quarter-final, will now catch their breath before next week’s Indian Open Superseries event in New Delhi, the final tournament in the year-long Olympic qualifying period.

But first Adcock, the only GB player in line to compete in two events at London 2012, has a second chance to improve on bronze tonight when he and Andy Ellis tackle the men’s doubles against top seeds Carsten Mogensen and Mathias Boe of Denmark.