Kirsty Gilmour has claimed a second international title in the course of her bid to climb back up the world rankings after sliding 40 places from the Scottish all-time high mark she set when she reach number 14 last year.
The 23-year-old returned to action at the Scottish National Championships in February where she won her fifth singles and first mixed doubles crowns, but knew as she headed to France, where she plays in the domestic club league, that she faced a stronger field at the Orleans International.
She was duly made to battle all the way, having to negotiate a deciding set in beating Denmark’s Sofie Holmboe Dahl 13-21, 21-16, 21-11 in the quarter-final, before again conceding a hard fought opening game against the host nation’s Delphine Lansac in the semi-final, only for her opponent to be forced to withdraw through injury in the final set just as the Scot was asserting herself having taken the second set comfortably and started the third well to lead 24-26, 21-14, 13-7.
In spite of that semi-final having ended early that amounted to more than two gruelling hours on court on Saturday, but Gilmour felt that set her up well for the final against new Scotland head coach Tat Meng Wong’s compatriot Ying Ying Lee.
“I was quite glad I got that much time on court because it let me put all the stuff Tat Meng and I have been working on into practise,” she observed.
She duly came through yet another tough opening game, before easing her way to victory over the Malaysian teenager in the second, winning 22-20, 21-11 as she drew on her past experiences of close games and her own Commonwealth Games comeback from 19-11 down in the second game of her semi-final when she won 10 points to secure her silver medal.
“I always feel quite confident in tight games and I feel my win/lose record when it gets to 19 or 20 all ir pretty good, but when I was 19-11 up in the second game of the final I was still conscious that it could be turned around because I’ve done that before,” Gilmour observed.
She noted that the work she has done with Tat Meng on the psychological side of the game also helped her to think more clearly at those key moments.
Gilmour’s next trip is a return to the European Championships later this month where she will be bidding to go one better than last year when she was the beaten finalist.
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