Emms relishing the badminton battle after tasting sweet revenge

After a stunning comeback that put her retirement on hold, Gail Emms spoke graphically of the fighting spirit that kept her and partner Nathan Robertson in the hunt for a valedictory gold medal.

"You wouldn't want to meet me on a dark night, would you?" said the 31-year-old badminton player after recovering from 17-12 down in the deciding game to beat China's Gao Ling and Zheng Bo and reach the second round.

"You have to be in their face and show I am not scared and that they can hit anything at me and that I can hit it back. I enjoyed every moment."

It might not have seemed that way when they teetered on the brink of defeat before closing out a 21-16 16-21 21-19 victory which suggested that revenge is a dish best eaten cold.

Gao had been one half of the partnership that narrowly denied the British pair a gold medal in Athens four years ago, and in partnership with Zheng had beaten them four times last year.

But now, when it most mattered and after Emms had announced this was to be her final major appearance in the sport, victory was secured in their opponents' own backyard before raucous home support.

Remarkably, it also came at a time when Robertson, with whom she has developed such an understanding since they started playing together as teenagers, is only working his way back into the game after ankle surgery.

After they briskly relinquished a 12-8 lead to lose the second game and slipped behind in the third it appeared to confirm fears that the tournament had come too soon for him.

For Emms, it threatened to give her illustrious career the dampest of endings after she and Donna Kellog had gone out of the women's doubles on Sunday at the first hurdle.

"In the third game I was so determined, this could be our last tournament and I just didn't want it to end," said Robertson, who rallied late in the match after looking like his lack of match sharpness was affecting him.

High times: Gail Emms and Nathan Robertson

"I thought they were feeling the pressure but to come back against the Chinese like that is unusual. It's normally so difficult to get a run of points against them like that. It was probably the best eight or nine points we've ever played."

Instead of being intimidated by the atmosphere against the second seeds at the cheerfully-named Beijing University of Technology Gymnasium they used it in their favour.

"When you're playing you don't really notice that the crowd is against you," he said.

"You're just so into it and it helps your energy. We love playing, we love winning and we hate losing. When you get the emotions of the Olympics going on it's something special and you can't really describe it."

Emms, who was particularly impressive around the net, gave her partner a lot of credit for closing out the match and gaining their berth in the last eight.

"They were just shaking a bit and Nathan hit some great smashes at the end," she said, now looking forward to meeting Korea's Lee Hyo Jung and Lee Yong Dae tomorrow.