Imogen Bankier, the world championship silver medallist, is to form a new doubles partnership with Scotland's leading singles player Kirsty Gilmour to strengthen the host nation's bid for medals at next year's Commonwealth Games.
It emerged as play got under way in the upgraded Scottish Open Grand Prix in which the pair are seeded to meet on opposite sides of the court in the women's doubles final at the Emirates Arena this weekend.
Bankier and Bulgaria's Petya Nedelcheva - they are No.24 in the world rankings - are top seeds, while Gilmour and another Scot, Jillie Cooper - their world ranking is No.30 - are seeded second.
The team management believes that putting Bankier and Gilmour together will maximise their chances at Glasgow 2014 and they will consequently play together for the first time at next week's Welsh Open before going on to contest the Irish and Italian Opens in the following fortnight.
Both players have performed well with their current partners but badmintonscotland know they will be judged on performance at next year's home Games and vie it as a particular opportunity.
"Everyone in badmintonscotland is delighted that Kirsty Gilmour and Imogen Bankier will be forming a new partnership," said Anne Smillie, the organisation's chief executive. "We believe this greatly enhances our opportunities at next year's Commonwealth Games both in the team and the individual events and we're very hopeful that this will be a great success for us."
The combination of two players who could hardly be more local -Bankier is Glaswegian while Gilmour comes from Bothwell but is a product of the school of sport at Bellahouston - looks ideal from a domestic perspective.
At 26, the vastly experienced Bankier has enjoyed significant success in recent years, claiming European Championship bronze as well as World Championship silver in mixed doubles with England's Chris Adcock.
Still only 20, Gilmour has risen more than 100 places in the singles rankings in the past year to her current high of No.25. It puts her fourth among those eligible to play at the Commonwealth Games, and indicates that she has a serious chance of taking a medal in singles if she continues to improve as she has.
Putting them together in doubles is, though, also partly a result of analysis of how the Commonwealth Games competition is expected to pan out.
"We've been looking very carefully to see what the best options are in the individual events at a Commonwealth Games," Smillie explained. "The ladies' doubles is probably the widest open event at the Games. It's very hard to predict who will win so there are definitely opportunities there for a medal.
"When we look at the players we have at our disposal, it is quite clear that Imogen, who is already established as the best ladies' doubles player in Britain, would have a great chance with Kirsty, who has had a reasonably successful partnership with Jillie Cooper, so we'll be working on this new partnership over the next few months."
The challenging schedules of both players will have to be closely monitored as a result of forming the new partnership.
Bankier will continue to play regularly, after the turn of the year, with Nedelcheva since their current ranking gives them a real chance of success at the forthcoming European Championships. The German pair, Johanna Goliszewski and Birgit Michels, are, one place higher at No.23, the only European pair ahead of them in the rankings.
Should the Scots combine as effectively as is hoped, it has the potential to be make life more demanding for Gilmour if she is regularly going deep into both singles and doubles at major tournaments.
Smillie explained that Yvette Yun Luo, Scotland's head coach, has been central to the decision and can see it benefiting Gimour in both disciplines. "Our head coach Yvette Yun Luo is absolutely convinced that playing ladies' doubles is actually a positive thing for Kirsty's ladies' singles," said Smillie. "It helps her physical conditioning but also technically means she has to think a lot on a ladies doubles court, so she's honing skills that are very important for her singles."
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