Lauren Smith thinks her women's doubles partnership alongside Chloe Birch is showing potential after they won at the Everyone Active English National Badminton Championships.

For 27-year-old Cumbrian Smith, it was a seventh straight women’s doubles title - with a fifth different partner - and the eighth national title of her career.

Competing in Winchester, Hampshire, they took the title with a 21-18 21-13 win over Jenny Moore and returning 2018 champion Jess Pugh.

"I’m really happy to have won," Smith said. "I’m starting to think people don’t like playing with me!

"Me and Chloe will be trying to qualify for Tokyo 2020 [the next Olympic Games], so we’ll be aiming to retain the title together next year. Having just started playing together in September, we’re really positive about how the partnership has developed.

"We’re already pushing top-level pairs and can take a lot of confidence from our performances in Winchester. We dominated the games and controlled the matches well [in] every round.

"The mental side of the nationals has changed a lot for me over the years. Going in as top-seed brings some pressure and it’s a good event for me to practice handling that expectation, especially as national titles are something you look back on when you’ve stopped playing.

"There’s a lot of pride in winning them."

Smith has also won the women’s doubles national title with Gabby Adcock, Heather Olver, Sarah Walker and Pugh.

She took the mixed doubles title last year with Marcus Ellis, too, but she was unable to defend that crown this year after Ellis’ withdrawal.