Smith aiming for immediate revenge after YONEX All England defeat
By Milly McEvoy in Birmingham
Lauren Smith is gunning for immediate revenge after being knocked out of the YONEX All England Open Badminton Championships 2024.
The Carlisle native suffered a 21-17 21-9 defeat alongside partner Marcus Ellis in the mixed doubles, losing to Dejan Ferdinansyah and Gloria Emmanuelle Widjaja of Indonesia.
The pairs will meet again in the first round of the Swiss Open just next week before a tilt at another podium at the European Championships at the beginning of April.
“We’ve got the Swiss Open next week, so it’s a quick turnaround for that one,” she said.
“We've actually have got those guys first round, so I would like a bit of revenge.
👏 Lauren, Marcus, whatever the future holds, hold your heads up high. We're so proud of you both 👏
❤️ Admin: Apologies, slightly biased post, but we love these two ❤️#YAE24 #allofbadminton pic.twitter.com/uEJh9GeRKu— 🏆 Yonex All England Badminton Championships 🏆 (@YonexAllEngland) March 14, 2024
“We certainly can put out a performance consistently across the game, so going into next week, there's a lot for us to learn, and I’m quite excited to be able to take that opportunity.
“Then we have the Europeans in a month, I’m really excited for that, we've been on the podium before and we want to be on the podium again.
“Knowing if we play consistently well, we're absolutely capable of it, so that's our focus right now.
“Take care of ourselves through this month and put on a good show in Saarbrucken.”
Ellis and Smith had shared a close encounter with the duo earlier this year and there was little to separate them in the first game.
The longest run of points came at the conclusion of the opener as Ferdinansyah and Widjaja powered to 21-17 with four consecutive points.
The second game was a different story as Smith and Ellis struggled with the change of ends and succumbed to a 21-9 loss.
We certainly love Badmintonly 🤗 - Lauren Smith after their round 2 defeat earlier today.
The passion is still there 💖❤️🔥 #YAE24 #Badminton #AllEngland #AllofBadminton pic.twitter.com/I8yfA7A6Ij— 🏆 Yonex All England Badminton Championships 🏆 (@YonexAllEngland) March 14, 2024
Smith added: “I’m really disappointed at the moment.
“We love playing in here and I'm as disappointed for myself as I am for the crowd because I don't think we put on the best show there.
“In the second half of the second set she [Widjaja] must have had a nine-point run on her serve, which just isn't great.
“But we really struggled to find the length and get the attack on that second end, so we were always on the backfoot a little bit, which is just disappointing.
“We did some really good stuff in the first set, but I think there was probably five, six, maybe more really easy errors that cost us, so that made a big difference.
“I’m just disappointed with it. I think we wanted to do better for ourselves, especially here.”
Be part of All The Action at the All England. Tickets are still available at allenglandbadminton.com. Can’t be in Birmingham this week? You can still see badminton’s most prestigious tournament play out on BBC Sport and TNT Sports. Don’t miss a minute!