Badminton: Egelstaff makes light work of Varga in opener

SCOTLAND'S Susan Egelstaff, the No 8 seed, had a straightforward win over Orsolya Varga at the start of her women's singles campaign at the Yonex European Badminton Championships at the MEN Arena in Manchester yesterday.

The Bank of Scotland International champion was on court for just 23 minutes in inflicting a 21-13, 21-13 defeat on the Hungarian and she now faces Portugal's Telma Santos for a place in the last 16. "It's nice to get off to a comfortable start," said the Glasgow 27-year-old. "It always takes a while to get used to a new court and so it's good to win in straight games. This is my final tournament of the season and I'm going on holiday next week. But then it will be straight back into hard training so that I'm ready for the Commonwealth Games in October."

In the men's singles, the globetrotting Scot, Alistair Casey, enjoyed a 21-6, 21-11 win over Turkey's Murat Sen.

"It appeared comfortable, but no-one is easy to beat in men's singles at this level," said the Glasgow 29-year-old. "I'm really pleased with the result and it's nice to be playing for Scotland this week.

Casey, who represents a club in Madrid, rarely plays in Scotland. But he did return home recently to work with the new Scottish national team coach, China's Yvette Yun Luo.

"I've been training with Yvette for the past two weeks and she has been terrific," he said. "I think she's an amazing acquisition for Scottish badminton and there can only be good things to come out of her appointment in the years to come."

Kieran Merrilees suffered an expected defeat from the top seed, Peter Hoeg Gade, in the first round of the men's singles. But the tournament favourite had words of praise for the Glasgow youngster.

Following the 21-7, 21-18 victory, Gade, the four-time champion, said: "Kieran is a very strong player and he has some great shots. The second game was very close and it was good to see him try some things against me.

"I'm sure that it will have done him good to have had a close game against me – he certainly has the talent to go a long way in the game. He just needs to become a little more explosive and a bit faster. But he is still very young."