Scot Kieran Merrilees, who competed at last year's world junior championships in Auckland in New Zealand, is earmarked as a player of huge potential.

And following a recent month long training stint at the Badminton World Federation's training centre in Sofia in Bulgaria, the Glasgow 18-year-old's appetite has been well and truly whetted.

"The BWF training camp had a major impact, both on court for technique and off court for physical fitness training," Merrilees stated.

"The first week was very difficult, but as the days went by the coaches started to establish my strengths and weaknesses and set up practices that worked on the suitable development.

"I personally felt a major improvement in parts of my game due to the coach, Blagovest Kisyov, quickly identifying a weakness in my movement. The head coach, Yassen Borissov, helped me a lot with tactics."

Borissov, who is Bulgaria's national chief coach, has been at the helm of the World Training Centre in Sofia since 2007 while Kisyov has been the assistant head coach since 2006.

Winner of the Glasgow Young Sports Person of the Year Award, Merrilees is currently ranked No.281 in the world in men's singles.

Not that it will be easy to make the grade at world level. "Men's singles is by far the most difficult discipline," pointed out Dan Travers, Scotland's Director of High Performance. "It demands tremendous levels of fitness and it is really, really hard to make it to the top. But Kieran is an exciting young talent."