Macclesfield’s Matthew Nottingham insists there are plenty of positives to take from his performance at the English National Badminton Championships, most notably getting one over his doubles rivals.
Nottingham teamed up with new partner Lauren Smith to reach the quarter-finals of the mixed doubles competition in Milton Keynes this weekend.
And he went one better in the men’s doubles, making it to the semi-finals alongside long-term partner Chris Coles before losing to top seeds Christopher Adcock and Andrew Ellis.
But it was in the previous round where Nottingham particularly enjoyed the result as he and Coles came from one set down to defeat Marcus Ellis and Tom Wolfenden.
Their opponents had been picked over them for a spot in England’s team for this week’s European Championships, and Nottingham admitted it was good to exact a spot of revenge.
“There are a lot of positives to take from my performances in the men’s doubles,” said Nottingham. “Me and Chris are working on pushing things forward.
“We did that quite well throughout the whole tournament, maybe not so much in the final game but in the previous two games we were on it so we can take that going forward.
“We’re pleased with everything. The morning session was the first time we played together at this year’s tournament and we played really well so I’m pretty happy with that.
“Unfortunately we just made a lot of mistakes in the semi-finals, there weren’t that many long rallies, which Chris and I like getting into.”
And while coming up just short in the men’s and mixed doubles saw him fail to make the finals events on Sunday, Nottingham was already looking ahead to his next competitions.
It is sure to be a busy few weeks for the badminton player, culminating in the All England Championships in Birmingham between March 4-9, an event he is keen to impress in.
“We’ve got the Austrian Open, Swiss Open and All England coming up so we’re really looking forward to it,” he added.
“We want to get to the first round of the All England. We lost in the first round of qualifying last time so we’re looking to go two steps further this time around.
“It would mean everything to me, I’ve been watching it since I was a kid growing up, so it would literally mean the world to me to play in the first round and hopefully in a couple of years get further and further.
“The only way is up hopefully.”
Tickets for the Yonex All England Open Badminton Championships at the NIA in Birmingham are available at www.allenglandbadminton.com or call the box office on 0844 444 9994.
