Chris and Gabrielle Adcock train, travel, practice together and are pretty much around each other every nanosecond of the day. It's the kind of life that could arouse grudging envy among many married couples and probably infuse dread in a few others. For the British badminton mixed doubles pair, it's a life they wouldn't trade for anything else.
Having met during their junior playing years, they began competing as a pair when they were 14 and soon realised that their partnership was for keeps. "We always knew we would end up playing together," Gabrielle, better known as Gabby, tells ESPN, "Our experiences with all other partners only helped strengthen the resolve."
They became the first husband-wife duo to win a badminton mixed doubles gold at the Commonwealth Games in 2014.
Currently ranked seventh in the world, the Adcocks, who became Britain's first semi-finalists since 2008 at the All-England Championship last year, could run into Olympic champions Tontawi Ahmad and Lilyana Natsir in the quarterfinals of the tournament this time. Just for a measure of what the British duo might be up against -- the Indonesian pair have won the mixed doubles title thrice in the previous five editions.
Since 1990, an English mixed doubles pair has lifted the title only three times so far with Nathan Robertson and Gail Emms being the most recent home winners in 2005. The Adcocks are driven by a compelling need to change that.
"Watching the Adcocks on court tells you why they are together. Their style is a combination of speed and attacking play leaving opponents swatting at lost causes."
In February this year, the duo played a pivotal role in seeing England through against Sweden to top Group 2 of the European Team Championships in Poland. With the tie against Sweden delicately poised at 2-2, they claimed a narrow 21-19, 21-18 win in the final mixed doubles match.
Their India trip at the start of the year was an incredible one -- finishing unbeaten and on the title winners' (Chennai Smashers) side at the Premier Badminton League (PBL). Managed and commercially owned by the Badminton Association of India (BAI), PBL is a franchise league which has both Indian and foreign players constituting its teams. "It (PBL) has the best funds any badminton league can offer and we found the idea of playing in a team quite interesting," says Gaby, 25, who along with Chris, 27, became the first British players to win a World Super Series title in December 2015.
A far from popular sport in Britain, a career in badminton turned out to be a result of familial influence on both. While Gabby, hailing from Leeds, took a liking to the sport after having accompanied her sister to the school badminton club, for Chris it was a journey that began with his grandad passing down an old racquet -- one that later found greater reason and purpose with his elder siblings pursuing the sport. Chris turned out to be much better at the sport than his brothers, winning an Under-11 tournament when he was all of seven. A freak on-court accident in 2004 which left him with a triple leg break though threatened to stub out his career early. But he returned to become the first English junior to win three U-17 national titles.
With injury stalling his singles ambitions, Chris soon found himself partnering Gabby in the mixed doubles event. They were controversially split ahead of the 2012 London Games and Chris, then paired with Scottish Imogen Bankier, lost in the first round itself. Since then, they haven't played apart.
In Rio, which turned out to be their first Olympic experience as a pair, the Adcocks missed out on a quarterfinal spot narrowly after squandering match points. "We were two points away from winning in the group," Chris reflects, "We were doing well but unfortunately that wasn't to be. But that's sport. We'll definitely use our experience to make a stronger case next time and we'll be in lot better shape in Tokyo."
Despite Great Britain winning its first badminton medal since 2004 at the Rio Games, the racquet sport's government funding has been slashed to zero for the 2020 Olympic cycle. UK Sport decided to discontinue funding for four other sports too - fencing, archery, weightlifting and wheelchair rugby - none of which managed to win an Olympic medal last year.
Earlier, following the 2012 London Games, funds for badminton were cut to 5.9 million pounds from over 7 million after none of the British players finished within the fourth and eighth positions, which was the set minimum target. The Adcocks have been tweeting their support and spreading the word around to back a signature campaign seeking the reinstatement of badminton funding for the Tokyo 2020 Games. UK Sport, though, categorically ruled out a change of heart, laying the blame for tightened purse strings quite squarely on Brexit.
"We have really skinned the cat in terms of looking at our own costs but our money is going less far because we have the cumulative effects of inflation, the costs of sending teams to qualify, and the fall in the pound. I don't want to get into a Brexit conversation but it's exactly that. Air tickets, hotels and so on are more expensive. In real terms we have less money," Liz Nicholl, chief executive of UK Sport told The Guardian.
"Either of us can have a bad day. There can be hurt, but there's never blame. We're here to pick each other up." Chris Adcock
With the sport's more illustrious cousin, tennis, enjoying a huge following in the country, Chris feels it's about time for badminton to find a similar footing.
"Andy (Murray) has done an incredible job in getting to the top, but even without him tennis has always been in the limelight. People were happy to watch (Roger) Federer and (Rafa) Nadal play," he says, "There are badminton halls everywhere in the country, you can rent a racquet or playing shoes and lots of people play it for fun. But exposure to world-class badminton is limited so people don't really get to watch the best players compete."
Watching the Adcocks on court tells you why they're together. Light on her feet and quick at the net, Gaby racks up the fast points through smash winners with Chris taking control of the high clears, their style is a combination of speed and attacking play leaving opponents swatting at lost causes. There's a palpable rock-solid understanding of each others' games, complete unwavering trust in one another and a sense of on-court telepathy. "Either of us can have a bad day. There can be hurt, but there's never blame. We're here to pick each other up," says Chris, who did a paperboy's job till he was 16.
Sharing both the sport and court space doesn't come easy. Among the myriad challenges, a tough one was to schedule their wedding keeping the competitive calendar in mind. "We wanted to get married without having to think of a major upcoming event. That was the primary concern," says Chris. A non-Olympic, non-Commonwealth Games year fitted their plans perfectly. 2013 was their pick. Soon after their wedding, they returned to win the Hong Kong Open beating the then Olympic mixed doubles reigning champions Zhang Nan and Zhao Yunlei of China.
For a couple whose lives are inextricably linked with the sport, the chances of an insipid performance or a devastating result having a direct and unpleasant bearing on their relationship runs high, or so one would think. Gabby is prompt to shoot the assumption down. Badminton isn't a favoured topic once they're back home from a lengthy training session or a sapping match. "Defeats never come between us," she says, "We know the effort both of us put into training sessions and how desperately each of us wants to win every match. We just count ourselves lucky to be able to travel together, when most of the other players on the tour are on their own."
They joke about their sports psychologist doubling up as their marriage counselor, their lives off the court revolving around their Maltese dog Bowser and plans to start a family being light years away.
"Ultimately," Gabby says, "your best performances come when you're happy."
For now, the Adcocks are just happy to be living out of the same suitcase.