The Mairs prepare to say goodbye on Day 2
Greg and Jenny Mairs are prepared to say goodbye to international badminton on the eve of their final YONEX All England Open Badminton Championships appearance.
The duo are in first-round mixed doubles action just a few days after announcing their retirement.
They face eight seeds Hiroki Midorikawa and Natsu Saito of Japan on the Minoru Yoneyama Court on Wednesday.
“We want to have fun and enjoy it,” Jenny said. “It would be really easy to get caught up in it but we want to slow everything down almost and take in the atmosphere, soak up our friends that we might not see as regularly now.
Greg added: “Of course we want to win though!”
The pair have taken the decision to retire to focus on their thriving YouTube channel Badminton Insight.
For Greg, retirement has allowed him to reflect on what he has achieved in his career.
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He added: “I was never that good in the juniors, growing up I never played in any junior internationals for England, I wasn’t even in the top 10 in the country.
“So if you had said to me back then ‘you have won international titles and have played in these World Tour events with the best players in the world’ I would not have believed it but I would definitely have taken it.
“That’s why, in life you always want to chase the next goal. As soon as we won an International Challenge, it was about let’s win a World Tour event. As soon as we got into the top 30, it was about getting into the top 20.
“But sometimes you have to be satisfied with where you have come from and we have achieved pretty good things with what we expected of ourselves.
“And we think we can achieve a lot more helping other people improve their games.”
Also in first-round action are Callum Hemming and Estelle van Leeuwen with the latter making her YONEX All England debut.
The mixed doubles pairing have been handed a tough bow as a pairing at the Utilita Arena as they face Yang Po-Hsuan and Hu Ling Fang of Chinese Taipei.
Hemming and Van Leeuwen are fourth on Court 3, with action beginning in Birmingham at 10am on Wednesday morning.
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Photo courtesy of Badmintonphoto
