Badminton: Scottish pair crash out to Russians

EDINBURGH'S Emma Mason and Glasgow's Imogen Bankier missed out on a medal as they lost in the quarter-finals to Russia's Valeria Sorokina and Nina Vislova at the Yonex European Badminton Championships in Manchester.

The Russians are ranked No.11 in the world – the Scottish Champions are No.136 having just recently reformed their partnership – and the early stage of the match was close with the first game standing all square at seven-all. But then the favourites took over and went on to run out comfortable 21-14, 21-12 victors.

In the women's singles, Scotland's Susan Egelstaff, the No.8 seed, also bowed out at the last-eight stage in a disappointing straight-games defeat from Denmark's Tine Rasmussen.

The Bank of Scotland International Champion had shown great form in easily winning her first two matches but she lost 8-21, 16-21 in under half an hour against the All-England Open Champion.

"At least I reached my seeded position and it was nice to be the last British woman in the singles," said the Glasgow 27-year-old.

"This was my final tournament of the season and I'll now have a week's holiday before getting straight into summer training."

Mason and Bankier, who are both based with the GB squad at the National Training Centre in Milton Keynes, will also have a period of training in preparation for the world championships in Paris in August and the Commonwealth Games in India in October.