Emma Mason, who played for Scotland in the 2007 World Team Championships in Glasgow, makes her long-awaited return from serious injury in this weekend’s mixed doubles at the Yonex Scottish National Championships at Bell’s Sports Centre in Perth.

It was almost 12 months ago that the Scot, with her sights set on the London 2012 Olympics, tore her left Achilles tendon. Since then, it has been a long and painful fightback to fitness.

“I’m almost there, and this weekend is the start to getting back to full match fitness,” said the Edinburgh 22-year-old. “ It was last March that I suffered the injury and I then had six weeks in plaster followed by three months with my ankle encased in a boot. That was the worst time because I even had to sleep with it on.

“Since last June, it’s been a case of getting my strength back. The mental attitude also had to be right. I had to regain my confidence, but now I’m feeling really good.  I totally trust the ankle again. So there’s just the final little bit to go to be fully fit again.”

A member of the Scottish Institute of Sport programme, Mason has had to sit back over the past year and watch her former Scottish women’s doubles partner, Imogen Bankier, scale the heights and reach No.8 in the world in mixed doubles with Edinburgh-born Robert Blair.

And during the absence, Edinburgh’s Jillie Cooper has also made her name for herself. The 20-year-old confirmed her big-time arrival by winning the women’s doubles at the Bank of Scotland International Championships in Glasgow in November.
 
Last year, Mason and Bankier won the Scottish women’s doubles title – but this year it is Bankier and Cooper who team up as title favourites and Mason is confining herself to the mixed.

“I just want to ease my way back in,” continued Mason. “So I’m just playing mixed doubles with Thomas Bethell.”

Reflecting on a frustrating year, Mason is relieved that she had the distraction of her Glasgow University studies. She is now in the third year of a maths and chemistry degree. But absence has made her heart grow fonder for the shuttlecock game.

“I have come to realise how much I want to play badminton and make it to the top level,” she stated. “I really knew it before, but the injury has reaffirmed it. I did get really low at some points over the past year and I think I would have gone slightly insane if I hadn’t been at university.

“But now I want to get back into the Scottish team, and my goal is to make it in time for the Sudirman Cup (the world team championships) in China in May. Unfortunately, next month’s European Championships in Liverpool are just a little too soon.”