Adcock celebrates national title double

Heading into the tournament in Milton Keynes at the weekend, the pressure was on Adcock to deliver in both the men’s and mixed doubles, seeded number one in both events.

And he didn’t disappoint, beating Chris Langridge and Peter Mills 21-18 21-11 in the final of the men’s doubles alongside Andrew Ellis.

But Adcock wasn’t done there, going on to lift the mixed doubles title alongside wife Gabby, getting the better of Langridge and Heather Olver in the showpiece this time.

In truth, few would have expected any different with the Adcocks having climbed to number five in the world rankings after winning the Hong Kong Open in November.

But Chris insists that turning up and winning is easier said than done, especially when everyone wants to knock you off your perch.

“We’ve come into the tournament with not much to gain, we’ve got a big target on our backs in both events,” he said.

“But it’s a great feeling to win the English Nationals as it always is. We’ll use it as a building block to hopefully go on to bigger and better things.

“We’re not looking back, we’re looking forward and we’ve got to make sure we leave a good history and even more titles to come.

“We got our last Superseries title in Hong Kong but we’re not thinking about that, we want to use that to gain more and more.

“We are not happy with one, we want to go on and get as many as we can. It’s very tough but we believe we can do it.”

With Ellis injured last year, Chris teamed up with Marcus Ellis and just missed out on the 2013 men’s doubles title, finishing second to Langridge and Mills.

But after getting his hands back on his title with his usual partner, Chris admitted it was good to be back where he belongs with a familiar face.

“It was unfortunate that Andy got injured before last year and thankfully Marcus stepped in and we narrowly missed out,” he added.

“But it was good to be back playing with Andy, he was real good this weekend and he was quite relaxed.

“The final was quite bitty but we both came out on top quite comfortably and we played pretty well. So I’m happy with the weekend.”

Tickets for the Yonex All England Open Badminton Championships at the NIA in Birmingham are available at www.allenglandbadminton.com or call the box office on 0844 444 9994.