Chris and Gaby Adcock bounce back from shock defeat

Former Ravenshead duo Chris and Gabby Adcock bounced back from their shock exit in the mixed doubles at the INTERSPORT European Championships in Kazan, Russia, by booking their places in the quarter-finals of their level doubles.

On a difficult day for the England players, the squad received a boost late on day two when Adcock and Lauren Smith reached the last eight of the women’s doubles with a 21-14 21-18 win over Irina Khlebko and Ksenia Polikarpova.

But next today they face the daunting task of taking on Danish top seeds and defending champions Christinna Pedersen and Kamilla Rytter Juhl.

Chris Langridge and Peter Mills had given England a lift minutes earlier when they came through a hard men’s doubles contest with Anders Skaarup Rasmussen and Kim Astrup Sorensen 22-20 21-16. The result was all the more satisfying for Langridge and Mills as they had lost the two previous meetings with the Danes.

In the last eight they will now face Russian third seeds Vladimir Ivanov and Ivan Sozonov.

And after Adcock’s women’s doubles win husband Chris and Andy Ellis, the second seeds, came from behind to defeat Dutch pair Ruud Bosch and Koen Ridder 23-25 21-12 21-18 after letting slip three game points in the first and needing six match points to finish the job after 58 minutes.

Adcock and Ellis can now at least match their bronze medal of two years ago if they defeat unseeded Russian pair Nikita Khakimov and Vasily Kuznetsov in the quarter-finals.

That lifted the spirits in the Adcock camp after the day started badly in the mixed doubles when the Adcocks, who were second seeds, fell to Anders Kristiansen and Julie Houmann.

The Adcocks began well enough, racing into an 8-0 lead on the way to taking the first game 21-12. But the Danes hit back to claim the second 21-18 and stunned the English pair in the third game to clinch it 21-12 and repeat last year’s three-game victory over them in the Yonex German Open in their only previous meeting.