Kelly Edwards in the final of European Open Glasgow

Kelly Edwards reached the final of the European Open in Glasgow after defeating Amandine Buchard in the semi final in a battle of nine minutes. In the final she will meet Raquel Silva of Brazil. In advance of the event, Edwards blogged about her expectations.

I'm really excited for the Glasgow European Open this weekend. It's very rare that we get to compete in front of family and friends on home turf so I'm really excited.

One of the British Judo staff was telling me this is biggest world ranking event since the Rio Olympics with 243 male and female judoka from 30 countries entered in total.

It just shows that the other judo nations know we host a great event and view this as a really good opportunity for experience and world ranking points post-Rio.

Having competed at the London 2012 Olympics and 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games it's just a special moment to compete in front of a home crowd.

There are just so many Brits who come out to support you from across the UK and to have everybody there supporting not just myself but the whole GB team will be really special.

I'm going into Glasgow having won my first Grand Prix medal in Zagreb last month and having medaled at my last three events. It was a great day in Croatia, I had fun, I was relaxed in myself and the performance came together and I was really happy to come away with a bronze medal.

My bronze medal match in Zagreb was against a really good young Romanian judoka called Larisa Florian who has already got senior medals to her name.

I wasn't going out to do anything spectacular but my throw was really good as I threw her for ippon and I was chuffed with that but I was just going out thinking "do my judo and do what I know and what I practise in randori at the British Judo Centre of Excellence".

I like to think I'm a really positive fighter and it's really hard to beat somebody who is always being positive and always on the front foot. That's the type of athlete and type of judoka that I want to be. I don't want to be going backwards or negative, I just want to be positive; that's part of my personality and to get that out into my judo in Zagreb was great.

One of the big changes for me recently has been my mental approach to competitions. I do judo because it's fun and sometimes we go into competitions and we can get really nervous and uptight.

Basically, I was feeling the pressure a lot and the pressure of competition makes me clam up a little bit sometimes. I perform best when I'm relaxed and I have fun so my coach Matt and I used that and we do a bit of mental prep before I fight and I definitely had fun in Zagreb and it paid off.    

My aim for Glasgow is the same as the Zagreb Grand Prix - just to go out and have fun. I deliver my best judo when I'm having fun and I'm relaxed and the result will take care of itself whether I medal or not, I'm there just to do the best that I can do.

You can watch Kelly and the rest of the British judoka in action in Glasgow from 9am via www.eju.net. Follow British Judo on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for exclusive content throughout the weekend.