Kirsty Gilmour single-handedly carried the Saltire into the weekend at the Emirates Arena as she battled her way into the semi-finals of the Scottish Open Grand Prix last night.

The Glasgow-based 22-year-old admitted that she had been concerned about her lack of knowledge of her Japanese opponent Ayumi Mine and was clearly relieved at managing to close the match out in straight sets.

“Playing an unknown player you have no prior experience of them, you have no background knowledge so you just have to spend the first five to 10 points information gathering and I feel I figured her out by the end of the second,” said Gilmour after a run of seven successive points finally saw her break clear and win the match 21-19, 21-14.

“We’d got some video from yesterday, but that’s all we really had on her and apparently our tactics were good. I knew it would be a good test and it was.”

Challenging as it was, then, she said she could take confidence from the win into a semi-final against Anna Thea Madsen, an opponent she has met twice before and whose compatriot Natalia Koche Rohde, she had beaten much more comfortably earlier in the day.

“I was feeling the pace a little bit because it was a tough pace to maintain,” Gilmour admitted.

“She just gets everything. You think it’s a winner but she just gets everything back and it’s always playing that two or three shots more, but I managed to stick in, take my opportunities and inject some pace when I could.

“No-one could hold their serve, but I finally got a little break and won the patience game. It was like a game of chess that one. It was just whoever makes the break first, but I think I had a bit more explosivity.”