The new Emirates Arena was throbbing on Sunday 25 November as the Scottish International Badminton Championships reached a terrific climax.

 

More than 3,000 fans joined 2014 Commonwealth Games mascot Clyde for the grand finale – and BADMINTONscotland Chief Executive Anne Smillie was thrilled with the big turn-out.

 

She said: "We have had a tremendous five days of badminton at the Emirates Arena, this fantastic new venue of which Glasgow can be proud. Finals day has really topped it off.

 

"Even though we didn't have a Scottish player competing on finals day, the number of fans who came through the door was tremendous and a real boost for the Championship – we had more than 3,000 fans on finals day alone.

 

“I would like to thank our loyal badminton fans for their support and I am so grateful to the 297 competitors from 32 nations for playing their part in making it so successful. I hope next year's Championship is even better than this one and we will waste no time looking at ways of achieving that goal."

 

Scotland did not quite manage to produce a finalist but the Robert McCoig Quaich went to Bothwell’s Kirsty Gilmour and Edinburgh’s Jillie Cooper, who reached the semi-finals of the women’s doubles. Kirsty, who won the award last year, also reached the last eight of the women’s singles while Jillie reached the last eight of the mixed doubles with Robert Blair.

 

England’s Marcus Ellis and Gabby White followed up their Belgian International triumph by taking the mixed doubles 21-16 21-16 against Dutch pair Ruud Bosch and Selena Piek.

 

But after the mixed doubles, Japan dominated proceedings by taking the women’s singles and providing all four finalists in both the women’s doubles and men’s doubles.

 

Their hopes of a fourth title were dashed when 2010 champion Anand Pawar defeated Kazumasa Sakai 10-21 21-11 21-17 to take the men’s singles title.

 

The Championships were staged at the Emirates Arena thanks to BADMINTONscotland in conjunction with Glasgow Life, and with financial support from the Sports Council for Glasgow.

 

 

FINAL RESULTS
Men’s singles: Anand Pawar (Ind) bt Kazumasa Sakai (Jpn) 10-21 21-11 21-17
Women’s singles: Sayaka Takahashi (Jpn) bt Hyo Min Kim (Kor) 21-6 21-8
Men’s doubles: Takeshi Kamura & Keigo Sonoda (Jpn) Hiroyuki Saeki & Ryota Taohata (Jpn) 16-21 21-11 21-17
Women’s doubles: Naoko Fukuman & Kurumi Yonao (Jpn) bt Yonemoto Koharu & Yuriko Miki (Jpn) 23-21 21-18
Mixed doubles: Marcus Ellis & Gabby White (Eng) bt Ruud Bosch & Selena Piek (Ned) 21-16 21-16.