Cumbrian badminton star Lauren Smith is targeting success at the YONEX All England Championships.

Smith and mixed doubles partner Marcus Ellis start their campaign with a clash against fellow English pair Greg and Jenny Mairs.

The duo are in action on Tuesday at the Utilita Arena in Birmingham.

It is one of the biggest events on the badminton calendar and also comes in a year when Smith and Ellis will be hoping to qualify for the Paris Olympic Games.

Smith, 32, says it is her favourite event and, speaking via YonexAllEngland on X, said: "To play at home, with your family there and with the home crowd behind you as well - and this is such a prestigious event - for that to be our home event is so lucky in that sense."

Ellis, the Cumbrian's on and off-court partner, also spoke of the importance of the challenges ahead.

“It’s a huge year for us. Outside of an Olympics or a World Championships, the All-England is everything to us,” said Ellis, speaking via allenglandbadminton.com.

“It’s an event where we don’t want to disappoint ourselves or the people that come to watch, we want to put on a show and a good performance.”

Carlisle-born Smith, from Longtown, is hoping to reach her third Olympics and a positive showing in Birmingham would only strengthen her bid.

Ellis added: “There’s a lot of pressure because our qualification period is a full one-year experience and there’s a lot of competitions along the way there that are of huge importance.

“In that period, we’ve taken on a psychologist to deal with lots of different pressures this year.

“We said, ‘let’s get ahead of this’ and then when the pressure came through, we were prepared for it and knew what we needed to do to get better.

“We want to look back at the end of our career and say we performed at those tournaments.”

Victory in their first round match would set up a second round meeting with either Dejan Ferdinansyah and Gloria Emanuelle Widjaja of Indonesia, or fifth seeds Jiang Zhen Bang and Wei Ya Xin of China.