Adam Hall keen to learn from badminton veteran Robert Blair

Scottish Under-19 badminton champion Adam Hall plans to learn as much as he can from playing beside Robert Blair at the Scottish Open Grand Prix this week.

The 18-year-old from Mauchline will partner Blair, 15 years his senior, in the men's doubles at the Emirates.

He said: "Playing with Bob is going to be great experience - a Commonwealth Games bronze medallist and a World Championship silver medallist.

"Hopefully, I can gain as much experience as I can from this outing."

Hall made history recently when he won all three available titles at the Scottish National Junior Championships in Motherwell, clinching the men's singles, men's doubles and mixed doubles in the Under-19 category.

He began playing badminton when he was four and went on to attend the Glasgow School of Sport, which enabled him to build towards a career in the sport. He has been training full-time for the past two years at the National Badminton Academy in Scotstoun, Glasgow.

He admits Blair has been "a huge role model" for him and says he is looking forward to playing beside him at the Scottish Open, which has attracted 236 entries from 31 nations in its second year under the Badminton World Federation's Grand Prix banner,

The partnership is invigorating, too, for Blair, who will also defend his mixed doubles title with Imogen Bankier, whom he partnered to a bronze medal at Glasgow 2014.

He told BBC Scotland: "This will be our first outing as a partnership so we're hoping to get a good understanding in practice in the next few days.

"It's nice the kind of energy that young players bring to the game. When you get older and you've been there and done it quite a few times, you can feed off their energy.

"It's nice to go along that journey with them sometimes.

"In doubles you have to have a good relationship with your partner. You get a new partner and it's quite exciting and it brings back the fresh feeling to the game again and it keeps you going a bit longer."

Glasgow-based Blair played beside Longniddry's Paul van Rietvelde in Prague earlier in November as they helped Scotland reach the finals of the European Team Championships, but Hall is hoping to seize his chance.

"I'm replacing him for this tournament and then we'll see how it goes," he said ahead of his first time in the tournament's main doubles draw.

Hall and Blair are unseeded for the Scottish Open, with Ronan Labar and Baptiste Careme of France given top billing. However, it is from elsewhere in Europe that Blair predicts a strong challenge.

"I think there are a couple of good German pairs [Max Schwenger and Josche Zurwonne, Raphael Beck and Andreas Heinz] and there are some Danish pairs that are quite tricky and tactically sound," he said.

"If we perform at our best and get a bit of home support again I'm sure the nice memories [of the Commonwealth Games] will come back and we'll do well."

On Friday it was announced that the Emirates Arena will host the 2017 World Badminton Championships, regarded as the sport's most prestigious tournament.