Imogen Bankier and Kirsty Gilmour will look to complete a superb week's work at Cardiff's Sophia Gardens today by claiming the Yonex Welsh International title on their first tournament appearance as a partnership.
Brought together in a bid to maximise Scotland's chances of medal success at next year's Commonwealth Games, they are through to this morning's semi-final with the final due to take place later today.
The games hall environment was distinctly different to the pomp and circumstance of The Emirates Arena on Sunday when Bankier and Robert Blair won the mixed doubles title at the Scottish Open Grand Prix to climb 11 places to 28th in the world rankings while Gilmour also rose to a career high of 23rd in the women's singles rankings after just missing out in a hard-fought final.
As a new partnership on the circuit, however - albeit they had played together for Scotland at the Sudirman Cup and for their French club in the past so were not completely unfamiliar with one another's game - the Scots had gone into the tournament unseeded.
However, their pedigree was such - Bankier as the best mixed doubles player in Britain and among the best anywhere as a past world championship silver medallist, and Gilmour having charged into the world's top 25 in women's singles in the past year - they were the pair that all others would have wanted to avoid.
They showed why after drawing the fourth seeds in their opening match on Thursday, swatting aside the New Zealanders Anna Rankin and Madeleine Stapleton aside and delivering similar treatment to the English pairing of Jenny Moore and Victoria Williams.
That earned them a second encounter with a seeded pair from the antipodes and while Jacqueline Guan and Gronya Somerville gave them stiffer opposition, in the second set in particular, they came through 21-12, 22-20.
"It's been good so far," said Bankier. "We played well and did the things we talked about well."
Having been so successful last week, the pair have chosen to focus on the women's doubles this week. "I don't have anything really to gain from playing singles here and I've played a lot of singles over the last few weeks so we just wanted to concentrate on this first tournament and get a good start," Gimour explained.
The more experienced Bankier, who has had to deal with a worrying ankle injury over the past fortnight, noted that they are looking to manage their schedules carefully. "There was a lot of build-up to last week and both of us played a lot of matches so, especially for Kirsty, playing singles and doubles was physically demanding. We've got this and next week and the week after so we have to be a little bit more careful," she said.
"We're coming to the end of the year now so we don't want to pick up any more little niggles."
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