Lane and Vendy suffer first round defeat at YAE

The reigning English champions were up against the Japanese sixth seeds Takuro Hoki and Yugo Kobayashi in Birmingham and quickly found themselves 15-5 down.

The pair forced Hoki and Kobayashi to a third game point but eventually lost the opener 21-9.

They came out firing in the second game and took an early lead, growing a four-point advantage before their opponents fought back.

Hoki and Kobayashi eventually closed out the win, triumphing 21-19 in the second to end Lane and Vendy’s involvement in their home tournament at the first-round stage.

“We started off pretty slow, they started off fast in the first game and we just weren’t really up to speed,” Lane said.

“And then in the second game we came out really good, gave ourselves chances to win the game but we missed a few shots.

“The All England is a massive goal every single year and it’s obviously disappointing losing, but I think we’re playing good stuff.

“We’ve played a lot of good badminton and maybe we didn’t start off well in that match.

“If we started off a little bit better, we could have changed things round a bit earlier.

“I think we’re playing well, it’s been a tough year, we’ve had very, very tough matches at the start of the year.

“It’s not been easy, but no match at this level is easy we’ve got to reflect on this take a bit of time for what is next.”

Lane and Vendy were hoping to join Lauren Smith and Marcus Ellis in the second round after the mixed doubles pair advanced on Tuesday in an all-English battle with Jenny and Greg Mairs.

Smith and Ellis are now flying the English flag solo and will be back in action on Thursday playing for a place in the quarter-finals.

For Lane and Vendy, attentions turn to qualifying for the Paris Olympics.

Vendy admitted that a home crowd may have affected the pairs start, but also gave credit to their opponents who are ranked 16 places higher.

He said: “Usually we’re pretty good at starting, I think the home crowd might have just played a little part in coming out slowly and then it was 15-5 and we kind of knew the set was gone at that point.

“It was just about trying to get ready for the second set, which we did pretty well because we came out good.

“I wouldn’t say dealing with the crowd is a problem in our game or anything like that, it was just one of those things.

“We were up against really good opposition today as well and we gave them a bit of confidence, they settled and if we came out good it could have been a different story.

“We had the Commonwealths in 2022 here and we got a silver medal and we were just loving the home crowd atmosphere and so it’s not something that puts us off.

“It’s something that we thrive on and something that massively helps us, so today we were just up against good opponents.”