English badminton stars eyeing end to home medal drought

Badminton stars Ben Lane and Sean Vendy want to use home advantage to end the British medal drought at the YONEX All-England Championships.

It has been five years since a British pair reached a semi-final and almost 20 since Anthony Clark and Donna Kellogg claimed mixed doubles silver in 2007 - the latest home medal at the world's oldest badminton tournament.

But Lane and Vendy think they could be the pair to snap the streak after a string of impressive results that has seen them mix it with the world's very best in the men's doubles circuit.

A run to a first Super 1000 semi-final at the Malaysia Open to start 2026 was the perfect confidence booster and Lane believes this can be the year they bring their best to Birmingham.

“The All-England is the tournament we want to focus on and put a lot of attention on," he said.

"We haven’t played as well there as we would like so we are really hoping that this year we can have a good run and be playing at the weekend.

“The All-England is one that we both went to every year when we were younger so it is definitely one that we want to try and get down to when there’s one court.

“You want to play in front of a home crowd and it would definitely be a highlight of my career. I remember going on a Sunday and watching Nathan [Robertson] play the final and that inspired me to take it up as a career.

“If we can play on a weekend and inspire people to play badminton then it’s a win, win.”

Lane and Vendy know they will have to be at their very best to be in the medals in Birmingham, with the world's best regularly descending on the tournament that runs from 3-8 March.

But their performance in Malaysia was evidence that they can compete at the sharp end, with the highlight an impressive quarter-final victory over Malaysia’s Goh Sze Fei and Nur Izzuddin.

They were beaten by eventual champions Kim Won-ho and Seo Seung-jae in a close-fought encounter but Lane revealed the focus is now on keeping up the momentum as they target a deep run at the YONEX All-England Championships.

“We’ve been challenging and beating the top pairs for quite a long time but in the past we would do it for a tournament and then be a bit inconsistent in the next tournament,” he said.

“We are now showing we have got the consistency to do it in every tournament.

“We got better and better as the week went on. It was a super tough match in the semi-final and we definitely feel like we could have won that if a couple of rallies just went slightly differently.

“It is probably the best start to a year we have had and it is about keeping momentum and match sharpness because there are so many big tournaments throughout the year, you don’t get a lot of time to break."

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