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Battling Blair falls in Thailand second round

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Robert BlairRobert Blair and Malaysian partner Tan Bin Shen went out in the second round of the men's doubles at the Thailand Open in Bangkok despite a battling second-game fight back against Yoshiteru Hirobe and Kenta Kazuno.

Blair and Shen lost the first game 21-15 and looked set for a quick exit when they trailed throughout the second game and faced three match points at 20-17 down. But they reeled off five points in a row to level the match. In the decider, however, the Japanese fifth seeds regained control and ran out winners 21-9 after 41 minutes.

Edinburgh's Blair will now head for Jakarta and next week's Indonesian Super Series where he and Shen must win two rounds of qualifying on Tuesday to reach the main draw.

Blair's former partner Imogen Bankier will be in mixed doubles action with England's Chris Adcock. This will be Bankier and Adcock's first tournament since being named in the Team GB squad for the Olympics in late July when they return to Wembley Arena, the venue where they won the silver medal at the Yonex BWF World Championships last August.

But the luck of the draw has deserted Adcock and Bankier, who face world champions Zhang Nan and Zhao Yunlei of China in the first round. At least the Anglo-Scottish pair will be boosted by the fact that they have two wins over the Chinese pair this year, having beaten them in Korea and at the Yonex All England Championships in Birmingham in March to close the head-to-head gap to 3-2.

Scotland's Susan Egelstaff is not playing in Indonesia but GB's other singles hope, Rajiv Ouseph, tackles the men's event.

World champion Steven Moodie starts the defence of his European Parabadminton Championship title this afternoon in Dortmund and is faced with three Group A matches in his bid to reach the knockout quarter-finals tomorrow. David Purdie is in Group C.

Scotland's other hopes - Alan Oliver, Kirsty Jones, Niall Jarvie and Colin Leslie - are also in action.

To view their progress over the weekend check out www.tournamentsoftware.com

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