The World Championships may have been a stand out moment for Chris Langridge alongside partner Marcus Ellis but the triple Commonwealth Games badminton medallist insists there is still plenty more to come from the duo this year and beyond.
Back in August, Langridge and Ellis reached the quarter-finals in Indonesia, where they lost out to eventual champions Mohammad Ahsan and Hendra Setiawan.
Unseeded for the tournament, the duo had already upset the odds by taking out the tenth and eighth seeds en route to the last eight – a run that provided them with an invaluable confidence boost.
It was all the more impressive considering they had only teamed up as a partnership in September 2014, shortly after Langridge had won mixed team and mixed doubles silver and men’s doubles bronze at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.
The major target is to try and get high enough up the rankings to try and qualify for next year’s Olympic Games in Rio, and Langridge believes they are heading firmly the right direction.
“I think my highlight of the year has to be the World Championships, we put in some great performances, we beat a couple of top ten players and we ended up losing in the quarter finals to the guys that won it, so it is a great tournament for us because to show that you are a top player in the world, the biggest tournament possible it shows when we are playing well we can play with the best,” said Langridge.
“It is just finding a way to keep that up because it is quite hard to stay at that level, we are kind of a pair that maybe going up and down a bit just because we are still getting used to each other we have only been playing together 10 or 11 months, so there is still a lot more we can learn from another on how to play as a partnership and so on.
“We have put in some great performances that shows when we are playing well we are quite good, it is just finding that when we are not playing at our best still being able to compete and really challenge the best in the world.
“At the moment we are in a good position, but so much can change there is still so many more tournaments to play, however if we keep doing as we are doing fingers crossed we will put ourselves in a great position to qualify for the Olympics.”
As well as his international commitments with Ellis, Langridge is also going to be kept busy in the coming months with the start of the new National Badminton League season on November 2.
The Surrey Smasher helped his side reach finals day last time out, although they came up short of lifting the trophy.
And the 30-year-old is intent on putting that right this time around.
“I am really looking forward to the start of the new NBL season, I am hoping it is going to be a great season for Surrey Smashers.
“Surrey did really well until the finals, we finished top of the league by quite a lot, but unfortunately the play off's did not go that well, the other teams played really well, we did not play our best, but full credit to the other team they played better than us.
“It would be nice to win it, I think our main goal is just to make the play off's again.”
© Sportsbeat 2015