BRADLEY SAUNDERS admits his Beijing Achilles’ heel has followed him to Delhi: his family.

The 24-year-old was rated as one of Britain’s hottest medal prospects heading into the 2008 Olympics only to crash out in the last 16 – a defeat he later attributed to home sickness.

Two years later and the light welterweight finds himself in exactly the same scenario.

And while his gold medal prospects were further underlined by a textbook display of amateur boxing in his 10-0 second-round defeat of New Zealand’s Anthony Taylor, Saunders revealed his thoughts are elsewhere.

“The Commonwealths are very important to me after Beijing,” said Saunders. “The one mistake I made (at the Olympics) was that I missed my family, “If it is a mistake I will say it again: I really miss my family this time as well. I speak to them two or three times a day on the phone because I love them to bits.

“I want to do them all proud. My little boy is four and is only just started school and he will be watching his daddy on telly.

“Any medal I win here would be for them.”

A medal looks odds on after one of yesterday’s most clinical demonstrations of boxing in the Talkatora Stadium.

While Taylor is reckoned to have a solid defence by most observers, once Saunders’ radar was tuned in to the Kiwi’s headgear it was oneway traffic.

Straight away Taylor was rocked by a big right and more punishment soon arrived as Saunders took the first round 4-0.

Despite slowing down in the second, Saunders again showed his class in the final round, against an increasingly desperate opponent, and sealed a simple victory with a punch on the bell that took his score into double figures.

It was also a marked improvement on his first round win over Granada’s Dominic Boatswain.

And while his defeat of Taylor had both fight fans purring and the judges impressed, Saunders maintains there is only the latter’s opinions that count in a sometimes controversial scoring system.

“You have to figure out how to score points,” said Saunders who now fights Canada’s Yves Ulysse. “Every competition, whether it is the Olympics or Commonwealths, the scoring is different.

“Here you have to keep your hands up – the name of the game is not getting hit.

“The problem with that is as soon as you were one down you are chasing it, but if you go one up then you are cruising.

“Someone with a tight guard does not normally get many points scored against them so that is why I am so pleased with how I boxed against Taylor.

“I was a bit disappointed with my first fight but as soon as I found my range in there I got into a groove.

Everything is coming together definitely. It is about maintaining that level of performance and listening to my coaches and hopefully I will do the same again.

“My next opponent will be a Canadian who looks flashy and throws plenty of shots which suits me fine.”