Hi there,

I know that time is running out for my hopes of Olympic selection, but I have been boosted by a recent run of good results. It was great to win the Yonex Scottish Championship again and then we had a great run at the Uber Cup in Holland.

Scotland finished fourth and it was far and away our best result in the Cup. It was just a pity that we couldn't quite make the top three and go through to the finals in Jakarta in May.

The final play-off was against Germany and I won the first singles against Xu Huaiwen (world No.7), which gave us a chance. But we didn't quite make it.

Still, on a personal basis, it was nice to finish off with such a great win. I keep telling everyone that I'm playing well enough - but no one really believes you until you actually start beating people.

I felt I was on form all week and it was great to get a chance to play against a string of the world's best [Susan also took a game from France's world No.5 Pi Hongyan]. That's what I need - a run of pressure matches against world-class players.

Now I'm looking for a good run, starting with the All-England Championships in Birmingham.

In fact, the silver lining from the fact that I haven't played so well over the last year or so is that there are I don't have too many world ranking points to defend. So I'm hoping that it is very much onwards and upwards from my current No.41.

At the Uber Cup, I also got the chance to play doubles with Jillie Cooper, which was good fun. Scotland has some very good up-and-coming doubles players and Jillie (a member of the London 2012 training squad) is one of them.

But I would advise them to play more singles' tournaments. I am very aware that playing doubles helps my singles' game - and it also works the other way.

In training, it should be a bit of both and I certainly think that the doubles specialists should enter the singles in some of the tournaments, especially those in Scotland.

Susan

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