Chris Adcock insists he is not feeling the weight of expectation on his shoulders, despite looking to end ten years of hurt at next week’s YONEX All England Open Badminton Championships.

This year’s YONEX All England starts on March 3 and marks the ten year anniversary of Nathan Robertson and Gail Emms’ famous 2005 triumph, a win that remains the last from any Brit in the UK’s flagship badminton competition.

But alongside wife Gabby, Commonwealth champion Adcock has surged to No.6 in the world mixed-doubles rankings, and definitely represents Britain’s best chance of glory this time around at Birmingham’s Barclaycard Arena.

And Adcock is adamant the duo will go into the tournament with nothing to lose, with Indonesian pairing Markis Kido and Pia Zebadiah Bernadeth first up in round one.

“I don’t think there’s any pressure for the All England,” he said. “We’re top six in the world so we’re not going in as number one favourites to win.

“We know that if we play well enough that we are definitely in with a good chance.

“But there are so many good pairs within the top ten and even outside the top ten as well that we are just focused on reaching our seeding.

“We want to make it to the quarters and then from there anything can happen so we’ll see what happens.

“Hopefully All England will be one of those times where we do it, but whether it’s this year or next year or the year after, who knows?

“We are still young and know there is plenty of time, but we are ambitious and we want to achieve a victory here as soon as possible.”

It has been a successful start to 2015 for the Adcocks, with a comfortable victory at January’s English National Championships followed by helping England to European Mixed Team Championships silver earlier this month.

And with their success spurring the popularity of badminton on to new heights in the UK, Adcock knows how important it is for the sport that they keep on improving.

He added: “We know how a home crowd energy can help us and we believe that we can achieve good things, but we will have to play some world class pairs.

“We don’t really think about any of the attention we might get to be honest.  It’s great if we can help our sport grow.

“We have our main focus on the court though, because we know that if we aren’t successful there then that interest is going to drop away.

“That’s something that comes with being reasonably successful in your sport and if we can keep being more and more successful that will come and it will be good for badminton in this country.”

© Sportsbeat 2015