Power-couple Chris-Gabrielle packs a punch at World stage

Reigning Commonwealth Games champions Chris and Gabrielle Adcock make for an unusual husband and wife combination that has mesmerised the world with scintillating performances on the badminton court.
They started as two young badminton enthusiasts who became friends before deciding to tie the knot in Harrogate, North Yorkshire in September 2013.
Marriage seemingly did wonders for their on-court fortunes as the Adcocks clinched the 2013 Hong Kong Open and 2014 French Open, besides winning the mixed doubles gold at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games and a silver in the combined team event.
The icing on the cake for them was the BWF Super Series Masters Final triumph at Dubai in December, 2015. They retained the title before losing in the finals in the last edition.

"We both took to badminton at a young age and played the same tournaments in UK. We were the best in our age group so it was natural that we came together to play mixed," Gabrielle told PTI.
"When we went full time, I was 16 and he was 17 and I think the coaches saw the potential and we had a successful junior career. We won the world junior silver medal, we had four matches points to win the gold but didn't quite do it.

"We had a break then, and played with senior partners to give us more experience so that we break into the senior circuit, then the coaches pulled us back together and we went from strength to strength after that," she added.

The World No.8 English pair, which helped Chennai Smashers to win the second edition of Premier Badminton League a week back, is excited about the new season.
"January is a long training time for us, last year we had good results as we reached the finals of the Dubai Super Series final. We want to do our best in training and give our best in the new season," Chris said.
Gabrielle said: "We had a good couple of years and we think we have started to push ourselves to be at the top consistently, we have made it to the semis and finals of big events.

"So it has been going well, we think we have just started to hit the peak. I am really looking forward to 2017. I think it is going to be a really excited year for us.
"Definitely World Championship medal, to win the European championship, getting into the top-four and winning as many titles as possible and All England championship will also be there in the list," said the 26-year-old.
Asked about China's decline in world badminton, Chris said: "I don't think China has gone worse, I think rest of the world has gone better. Everytime you go and play a Chinese player you know it will be a tough battle. They are a great nation and I am sure they will have many more great players."

Gabrielle and Chris are the best-ranked England players, while World No. 16 men's singles player Rajeev Ouseph and World No. 15 men's doubles pair of Marcus Ellis and Chris Langridge have also been doing well. However, they don't have any women's singles player in the top 50.
Asked about the lack of women's singles players in England, Chris said: "Women's singles is a tough discipline. England are very strong in certain disciplines but women's singles is probably our least strong. But we have players working hard at home with coaches and hopefully some young player will step up. It is difficult, it is tough."

Chris, 27, who also won the silver medal at the 2011 World Championship in London alongwith his earlier partner Imogen Bankier of Scotland, however, also praised young Indian player Satwik Sai Raj Rankireddy.
"India has some very good badminton players and there are lots of people playing and now with the new Malaysian doubles coach Tan Kim Her for India, they are going to produce some players. It is just a matter of time," he said
"We played against a couple of young Indians in the PBL, they are in good shape and have a lot of potential, especially Satwik had a few games and he seemed to grow in confidence, it will help in his career.