Chris Adcock believes he and wife Gabby are well on track for Rio 2016 despite their recent heartbreak at YONEX All England Open Badminton Championships.

The husband-and-wife duo, who won mixed doubles gold at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, played superbly to reach the semi-finals at Birmingham’s Barclaycard Arena but dramatically went down to fifth seeds Joachim Fischer Nielsen and Christinna Pedersen in the last-four.

The Adcocks, who had beaten Indonesian second seeds Tontowi Ahmad and Liliyana Natsir in the quarter-finals, got off to a disappointing start against Nielsen and Pedersen as they trailed 11-4 at the midway point of the first game.

And while they clawed it back to 10-12 at one point, they ended up losing the opener 21-13.

The English pairing have never beaten the Danes but they looked set to take it to a final set as they led 20-15 and were then awarded the winning point, only for it to be overturned on appeal.

And Nielsen and Pedersen produced a remarkable comeback to book their place in the final – which they would lose to Praveen Jordan and Debby Susanto – with a 21-13, 22-20 win.

Chris said: “We have got to another semi-final, we have beaten the world No.2 pair and we know we are in there with a shout [of qualifying for Rio] but we have not really been thinking about qualification points too much.

“We have been focussing on performances and we have put some in this week. It is just a shame that we put in a good performance in that first set and we let it slip.

“It is very tough to take. We did not impose our style on them and they came out very solid.

“We found our groove and were dominating the whole of the second set so to let four set points go like that, is really hard to take.

“We always learn from every win or loss. It is tough to know what we will learn from it at the minute but we will go back and make sure we put right what went wrong.”

Despite the semi-final defeat, it was still a hugely successful tournament for the Adcocks as their victory over Ahmad and Natsir meant they were the first Brits to reach the semi-final of the All Englands since 2008.

The Glasgow 2014 champions also created history in December by becoming the first British players to win a title at the end-of-year World Superseries Finals.

They are currently seventh in the world, meaning they are closing in on qualification for the Olympic Games in Rio, but Gabby acknowledges it may take them a while to recover from their loss.

“Comebacks like that do happen but it is just frustrating that we couldn’t do anything different,” she said.

“She caught me twice with the flick that I had been reading really well but credit to them, they are an experienced pair who have been playing for a long time.

“It is just frustrating that we did not switch on that they would be doing something different at the end of the match or even take our time a bit longer.

“It is just a sore feeling right now not to have taken that second because we were feeling really good with the way we were playing.

“We are only 25 and 26 and we already have so many experiences in our bag but definitely we will remember this experience for next time.

“We are quick learners and we like to put things right quite quickly and we will definitely do that.”

Sportsbeat 2016