Glasgow's Imogen Bankier and England's Robert Blair needed to reach the top 16 in the world by May 1 to have a chance of making the Olympic Games. After just 11 months as a partnership, they have fallen just one place short.

Of course, reaching No.17 was irrelevant as they also had to be one of the top British couples in the mixed doubles to claim a place on the plane for Beijing in August. Nathan Robertson/Gail Emms (No.6) and Anthony Clark/Donna Kellogg (No.8) could not be overtaken.

But it is still a remarkable achievement that Bankier and Blair came so close. Now the hope is that they will maintain the partnership and maybe even be medal contenders by the time London 2012 rolls around.

In this week's European Championships, Bankier and Blair's latest sign of their huge potential came when they took a game from defending champions, Clark and Kellogg, in the quarter-finals of the European Championships.

Clark and Kellogg, the No.2 seeds this year, retained the title with a comeback 16-21 22-20 21-15 win over Poland's Robert Mateusiak and Nadiedza Kostiuczyk, who had knocked out top seeds Robertson and Emms in the semi-finals.

Susan Hughes, who was the Scot with the best chance of making the Olympics a year ago, has had a disappointing season and has slipped well out of the reckoning at No.41 in the world in the women's singles.