The main rounds at the Forza Denmark International kicked off today in the beautiful harbour town of Frederikshavn in North Jutland and while the field is jam packed with top Danish talent the most impressive performance on day one was that of young Scott Kirsty Gilmour.

Gilmour, renowned at this stage for her impressive jump smashing ability, took down two good Danes in the opening rounds to advance to the quarter finals of the women’s singles. The Scott beat Camilla Sørensen, the recently retired Danish number two, which appeared to set the tone for her day one performance. Gilmour was always in control winning 21-19 21-12.

The young Scott, a recent junior graduate, then went on to beat Mette Poulsen in the round two and displayed great maturity in that game coming back from losing the opening game to take the match 21-18 in the decider.
Susan Egelstaff  has carried the burden of Scottish women’s singles for what seems like an eternity and with her time on court running out Scottish badminton can be safe in the knowledge that Kirsty Gilmour is coming along behind albeit in a completely different style.

“I enjoyed today even after a pretty difficult journey to get here yesterday by plane and bus. It was good to beat someone as experienced as Camilla (Sørensen) and I knew what I had to do against Mette (Poulsen) as I know her from out junior days” said Gilmour to BE.tv

The men’s singles saw Henri Hurskainen return to competition after his heroic run to silver at the European Championships two weeks ago in Sweden. The quietly spoken Swede was never troubled in the opening rounds and it is clear he has brought his form from the Europeans with him to Frederikshavn this week.

Top seed Brice Leverdez from France got the fright of his life and had to come back from a set down and 18-17 behind in the second to finally end the challenge of Danish youngster Flemming Quach in three sets.

In the match of the day the much anticipated mixed doubles shoot out between European silver medallists Mads Kolding/Julie Houmann and the newly crowned Danish national champions Anders Skaarup/Sara Thygesen had everyone on the edge of their seats. The experience of Kolding and Houmann came through in the end with the silver medallists from Karlskrona winning 21-18 26-24.

“This was always going to be a tough match but we have good form so we felt pretty confident coming into this match. As usual we got off to a slow start but once we found our game we pretty much controlled the match even though we struggles to get across the finish line” said Kolding and Houmann to BE.tv.

The English continue to juggle their women’s doubles pairings and seeing Olver and Agathangelou play on different courts with two new partners took some getting used to. Olver and Alexandra Langley came unstuck in the second round while Agathangelou, alongside Kate Robershaw, advanced to the quarter finals. The sharpest of the new English pairs appears to be Gabrielle White and Lauren Smith with white looking to do back to back titles after victory in Portugal last week.

For all Results click HERE

To revisit all the day’s action and interviews on demand go to BE.tv by clicking HERE

Article and Image by Mark Phelan (Live in Frederikshavn)