Rory Easton believes he and doubles partner Zach Russ will come back stronger after falling to the No. 4 seeds at the YONEX All England Open Championships.

The newly formed English pair were up against it from the start against Japanese duo Hiroyuki Endo and Yuta Watanabe in the Super 1000 showpiece in Birmingham, losing 21-4, 21-9 in the men’s doubles.

Despite the defeat, Easton says he and Russ are keen to learn from the experience as much as possible.

“We played a really good pair of opponents,” said the 20-year-old from Sevenoaks.

“It was a great learning experience for us. It was our first time we’ve played together and we certainly thought we got better as things went on. At first conditions were hard to deal with and was difficult to play.

“We can reflect on what they do much better than us. We can go back into training and work on these things.”

The All England, one of only three Super 1000 tournaments on the BWF World Tour, was one of the last sporting events to be staged before Covid-19 struck last March.

The lack of fans and the size of the arena made it a unique experience for the doubles pair, and Easton acknowledges they improved as the game went on as they became accustomed to conditions.

“Every time we play in a big arena like this we will get better at dealing with these conditions,” said Easton.

“We haven’t played in many halls like this but generally we need to improve in training and come back better next year.”

The pair, who only started playing together in January, will be eager to improve on their performance when they travel to Paris next week for the Orléans Masters.

“This is our first tournament together and we played a really good team in a really big arena is definitely going to be one to remember in the future as our first match,” Russ added.

“There’s a lot of things today we struggled with but our opponents were at a different level from us. We have a lot of things to learn and reflect on.”

Following a tough year for everyone, the YONEX All England Open Badminton Championships marks the first step in inspiring people to get back on court as soon as they can. For more information for the badminton community visit the badmintonengland.co.uk website