Badminton: Bankier and Adcock lose to Polish pair

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

The leading GB pair, who are tenth 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 turned it round to lead 12-11 and went on to take the game 21-17.

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 a 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 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.