Battling Brits

The 20-year-old defeated Aditya Elango Abdul Raheem 21-12 21-15 in 34 minutes in his first-round match which earned him a contest with 10th seed Petr Koukal of the Czech Republic.

Scotland's other hopes, doubles pair Watson Briggs from Renfrew and Paul van Rietvelde, fell to Korean pair Kim Ki Jung and Shin Baek Cheol, but it was close with the Scottish pair going down 21-19 21-16.

This week, just as SportsExtra went to press, confirmation sans detail from Los Angeles that Briggs and Van Rietvelde had found success there at the US Open in Orange County.

Meanwhile, Glasgow's Alistair Casey has reached the quarter final of the Yonex Australian Open in Melbourne. The joint third seed progressed courtesy of a 21-10 21-17 win over Aussie Wesley Caulkett and a 21-10 21-18 victory over Kevin Dennerly-Minturn of New Zealand.

Casey next faces Malaysian 5/8 seed Yogendran Krishnan with a place in the semi finals at stake.

Scotland's number one player, Clarkston's Susan Egalstaff, is preparing to represent Scotland for the third time at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi in October.

The 27-year-old, Clydesdale Bank's athlete of the month (winning 500 towards training and competition costs) in June, has enjoyed a season-long run of on-court successes and consistently impressive performances both domestically and internationally.

Ranked 27 in the world, her season culminated with an invitation to the Badminton Europe circuit finals in June where as ExtraSport duly reported, she finished by the narrowest of margins as runner up to Ella Diehl.

Mrs Egelstaff's currently training with Badminton Scotland's new head coach Yvette Yun Luo and says "it is going really well".

She enthused: "Yvette works me really hard but she's a great coach and even though I've only been working with her for six months I can already see how much difference it's made. She's been excellent for me".

Susan's back in action on the international scene later this month in Macao.