Wilmslow’s Matthew Nottingham believes his and Harley Towler’s performances at the YONEX All England Open Badminton Championships prove they have the talent to test the best men’s double’s pairings in the world.
The English duo faced talented Chinese pair Liu Cheng and Lu Kai at the Barclaycard Arena in Birmingham in their first round match at the prestigious competition.
Nottingham impressed on Wednesday night but despite pushing their opponents all the way, ended up losing 21-18 22-20.
The former Wilmslow High School pupil said: “I am pretty gutted. I think we definitely went out there with a game plan and did that as well as we have in any other games we have played.
“I think the first 11 points in the first set, it was just nerves that meant we did not play as well but I thought at the end of the first and the whole of the second, we played really well.
“Harley mentioned that he did not play well but I thought he was fine and there was nothing wrong with how he played; we were both nervous in those first 11 points and that is playing on his mind.
“They are both in the top ten in the world in the mixed doubles so there are a lot of positives to come from it.
“We are just disappointed that we did not take a set at least.”
Nottingham started his YONEX All England campaign on Tuesday with defeat in the mixed doubles first qualifying round alongside Emily Westwood, before going on to beat Scottish duo Martin Campbell and Patrick MacHugh 21-16 19-21 21-10 alongside Towler.
That set up the contest with Cheng and Kai 24 hours later and Nottingham is certain they are now ready to challenge the sport’s best moving forward.
The 23-year-old added: “It is really hard to think about it right now but I think we played really well when you put all the negative feelings to one side.
“We are both players who want to always play our best so we are never going to be happy even if we win.
“In training we are always trying new things and looking at other people to see what they are doing in training so we will work on those things before next week.
“Next week in the Swiss Open we have another Chinese pair and I do not personally think they have as many weapons in their armoury as the pair we just played so we can go into that game with a lot of confidence.
“We have improved our game in that match and we now know we can push those top pairs.”
Watch the world’s best players at the YONEX All England Open Badminton Championships at Birmingham’s Barclaycard Arena from 8-13 March. For tickets visit allenglandbadminton.com
