Gabby and Chris Adcock were left to reflect on opportunities missed after they exited the Olympic mixed doubles at the group stage on Saturday afternoon.
The duo held match points in the second game of their clash with Poland’s Robert Mateusiak and Nadiezda Zieba before eventually going down 18-21, 27-25, 21-9.
It has become a recurring theme for the duo in Rio as they also missed out when on match point in their first match of the tournament that ended in a narrow loss to China’s Chen Xu and Jin Ma.
“We’ve really enjoyed playing here but it’s gutting,” said Chris.
“We played well and put ourselves in a great position and another match with match point. We just didn’t take our chances.
“We had the match point to go through to the quarterfinals, just like we did in our first round match and we did not take them so obviously we are devastated. Absolutely devastated.”
Victory on Friday over Joachim Fischer Nielsen and Christinna Pedersen had set up a winner takes all clash against the Polish pair.
And the Adcocks looked in supreme control as they cruised to the first game and at match point they appeared to have rubber-stamped their path to the quarter-finals.
But in the end the Poles proved too resilient and the Adcocks will head home thinking about what might have been.
“It is difficult right now to reflect. It is the Olympic Games,” said Gabby. “It is what everybody wants to do the best in. I am sure we will think of them in the days to come,” she said.
“It has been amazing. It is my first Olympics so to get to experience it with my husband has been amazing. We are disappointed to finish on a loss, but the whole Games has been a very nice experience.”
