Badminton: Edinburgh youngster heads for World Championships

Edinburgh badminton ace Martin Campbell will have the backing of a shuttle dynasty when he and Troon's Angus Gilmour fly the flag for Scotland in men's doubles at the Wembley World Championships on Monday.

Martin, 21, who started playing as a seven-year-old at the Meadowbank-based Western club, is the son of Colin Campbell who represented Scotland at junior and veterans level as well as being treasurer of Lothian Badminton while uncles Ian and Donald have also turned out internationally across the age spectrum.

Additionally, younger brother Michael recently represented Scotland at the European Junior Championships in Helsinki while cousin Lindsay is currently ranked joint Scottish No.1 in ladies doubles and 2nd in mixed doubles. "For as long as I have been playing I've had strong family support," said Martin, a Mathematics and Management student at Loughborough University where Angus Gilmour also studies.

"Having the chance to build up a partnership with Angus over four years has been huge and our biggest success so far came when finishing runners-up in the latest Bulgarian International tournament. That contributed to our ranking going up over 50 places and helped qualify us for a first crack at the 'worlds'."

More than 50 countries will be represented and for many participants it will be a dummy run ahead of next year's London Olympics which are being held at the same venue.

However, Martin puts stronger emphasis on competing at Glasgow's Commonwealth Games in 2014. "My ambition is definitely to play in the Olympics but, realistically, at this stage I've got to be looking at the next Commonwealth Games and then, hopefully, Rio 2016.

"Appearing in Glasgow would be tremendous not just because of the home crowd but also because I previously played in Commonwealth Youth Games in India on the way to making my Scottish senior debut in a Thomas Cup match against Poland."

Recently Martin has been putting finishing touches to his preparations at Badminton Scotland's base in Scotstoun, Glasgow, under the watchful eye of coaches John Quinn and Yvette Yun Luo.

Capital coach Kenny Middlemiss is also given tremendous credit by Martin, who says: "On returning from Loughborough the initial emphasis was on physical aspects but gradually that gave way to gaining extra sharpness. We start against Australian pair Ross Smith and Glenn Warfe but any tie at this level will be a huge ask and we aim to make the most of the opportunity."

The World Championships run throughout next week with Campbell and Gilmour scheduled to be eighth match on the televised show court shortly after six times Scottish women's champion Susan Eglestaff begins her singles bid against Canada's Michelle Li, also on Monday.