Edinburgh’s Jillie Cooper and England’s Mariana Agathangelou, a new partnership his season, made it a dream come true at the Bank of Scotland International Championships at the Kelvin Hall with a shock win in the women’s doubles.

With the scalps of the No.1 and No.4 seeds already in the bag, the two 20-year-olds easily added the No.2 seeds with a crushing 21-17 21-13 against Sweden’s Emma Wenberg and Emelie Lennartsson.

“This is definitely the highlight of my career,” said a delighted Cooper. “This was my first major win and to do it here in Scotland was perfect. The crowd was absolutely fantastic.

“I felt quite nervous on Saturday, but was really comfortable in the final. I went out just to really enjoy myself and it worked. This is one of the best tournaments on the European circuit, and to make my winning breakthrough here makes it extra special. 

“Mariana and I have only played four tournaments together, but we seemed to work well together from the start and in practice. We’ve already reached the semi-finals in Belgium and the quarters in Bulgaria and, in fact, we’ve only lost to the European gold and bronze medallist.” 

Dan Travers, Scotland’s High Performance Director, was just as thrilled. “I just hope they get to stay together,” said Travers. “When a Scot does well with an English partner, they are often taken away from them. It’s happened twice with men’s doubles in the past.”

Cooper is already setting her sights on the London 2012 Olympics and then the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. 

She had intended to go to Stirling University when she left Boroughmuir High School, but opted instead for the Open University and mixes her studies with a fulltime badminton career based at Milton Keynes with the GB squad. 

In the women’s singles final, England’s Elizabeth Cann, the runner-up last year, battled back from dropping the first game and finally ended an impressive run from the unseeded Kati Tolmoff. 

The tall, blonde Estonian had ruined Susan Hughes’ hopes of a rare home victory with a straight games win in Saturday’s semi-final, and the 25-year-old looked capable of staging a repeat over the No.1 seed when she romped through the first game 21-16. 

But 29-year-old Cann, who had been Hughes’ victim in the bronze medal play-off at the 2006 Commonwealth Games, showed her experience and restored order by comfortably winning the next two games, 21-10 21-12.

England completed a singles double when Rajiv Ousef pulled off a surprisingly easy 21-17 21-8 win India’s Anand Pawar, who was seeded one place higher at No.5.