BIRMINGHAM, England — Jamaican badminton player Chris Binnie was left ruing his effort in his Men’s Singles Round-of-16 contest against hometown player Adrian Waller at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England, on Sunday, but thinks there were still some positives to draw on from his performance.

Binnie, who was the only player from the Caribbean to advance to the third round of the competition here, fell 7-11, 4-11, 4-11 to the world number 26-ranked Waller, a result that he chalked up to poor execution and him not being able to play himself into the game against the high-ranking Waller.

“I mean, he [Waller] was sharp, he was accurate and he was just too good for me today. I mean, it definitely wasn’t one of my best performances but you know, you just try and prepare and you come to these events and you do your best and some days are not great, some days are great. Today [yesterday] just wasn’t my best but credit to him he played really well and I hope he does well going forward,” Binnie told the Jamaica Observer.

The island’s other badminton player at the Games, Julian Morrison, brushed aside Ghana’s Evans Ayih 3-0 (11-7, 11-5, 11-6) in the Men’s Singles – Plate, Round of 16 ­– to give the Jamaica something to cheer for in the event.

Mason Caton-Brown scored two points and 10 points to help Jamaica’s Rugby Sevens team to 13th place at the Games after they edged Sri Lanka 26-24 in the play-off, this after earlier bettering Malaysia 28-7 for their first win of the tournament.

Back at the University of Birmingham squash courts, Binnie pointed to his high number of errors and says he did not manage to get himself fully into the game against former world number 17-ranked player, a silver medallist in the doubles competition at the 2018 Games in the Gold Coast, Australia.

“The outcome isn’t really like what I focus on, it’s more about the match and the game and I just couldn’t find a way to get stuck into the game, you know, to really have some nice long rallies and I play well when I have longer rallies to get settled into points and it was just pretty stop-start,” Binnie said.

“That was either him being really accurate or maybe I just wasn’t getting the ball into the right places. So I mean, I have to go back and look at the video. On paper obviously, he’s definitely the heavy favourite but I was just hoping that I could have gotten into a few more of those rallies a little longer to get a bit of a more much out of it. So I think that’s where I’m disappointed and not necessarily about the outcome.”

“With COVID and everything, just getting here was a big checkmark, getting myself in condition to train to play and to compete, that was number one. Getting to where I got at the last Commonwealth Games when I was more in my prime is definitely another big checkmark. It wasn’t the best performance today but I competed, I got to represent Jamaica again and hopefully made them proud and I got into the last 16, so there definitely are some positives,” Binnie said.

Meanwhile, Jamaica’s swimmers featured in several events at the Sandwell Aquatic Centre on Sunday.

Keanan Dols, 2:01.75 was fourth in the men’s 200m butterfly heats, same as Nathaniel Thomas, 27.60, in the 50m backstroke. Thomas, 52.64, and Sidrell Williams, 53.54 finished fifth and eighth in the 100m freestyle heats.

In the heats of the women’s 50m butterfly, Zaneta Alvaranga posted a 27.89-seconds clocking that gave her seventh place in her heat with Mackenzie Headley, 28.12, touching the wall in eight in her race.

The lawn bowls team went down 26-7 to Northern Ireland, while cyclists Daniel Palmer, 11.128, and Malik Reid, 11.249, finished 24th and 25th respectively in men’s sprint qualifying.