Hi all,
Today I won my first title since winning the Dutch International back in April. Over the weekend I've played four matches and won them all, which earned me the title as East Regional Champion here in Denmark. It's a regional championships for all players playing in the eastern part of Denmark. On danish we call it Østmesterskaberne (øst = east, mesterskaberne = championships).
It's not a very fancied tournament and definetly not one of my biggest wins ever, but a win is a win and the draw was actually quite strong for a national tournament. Well exemplified by my final opponent who was no less than my good friend Scott Evans who is ranked just around 50 in the world... Scott is irish, but represents danish club Gentofte which is why he was allowed to play in this tournament. We played a good match in a final I think the audience enjoyed with the scores being close most of the way. I ended up winning 22-20 21-16. In the semis I also had a very decent opponent in Martin Delfs, who has shown his great level lately by making it to the final of Slovak International and last 16 of Denmark Open. I played an excellent match against him and won very convincingly 21-16 21-10.
(photo by badmintonphoto.com)
Even though it wasn't an international title I won today, I'm still pleased with the victory. Beating Scott and Martin in straight sets are good results for me and winning a tournament is always going to boost my confidence a little...
All the best,
HK
Good news! The new world rankings have just been released by BWF today and just as I anticipated I'm back into top 50!
My new world ranking is 44 and this is the highest ranking for me ever. With no points to defend until mid-february my ranking may even be further boosted in the coming months.
My new ranking is a milestone acheived for me as this is the first time since I got injured in october 2007 I'm back in top 50... I was ranked 47 at the ranking list october 18th 2007, got injured immediately after and didn't get back playing until the end of february 2008 where my ranking was down to 131. A bit demotivating, but I've been working hard to get back and now I've got my reward.
It has taken some time to get back where I feel like I belong, but it's not going to end here...
My day here in Norway started off really well with a great 21-14 21-10 win against Emil Vind. I played an excellent match where I kept my focus throughout the match any never left him any chance. I controlled things from the beginning to the end, really nothing bad to say about that performance.
In the semi-final I played Henri Hurskainen of Sweden, a player I've never before lost to. This time it was going to be different though... After winning the first set 21-18, I had things under control and got to my first matchpoint at 20-15. Somehow I managed to lose 11 straight points at this point, losing the set 22-20 and going down 4-0 in the third! To be honest I really don't know what happened, but I don't feel like I played particuarly bad at 20-15, so credit to Henri for hanging in there and forcing the deciding set. I will watch the match on video tomorrow and try to analyze what went wrong for me.
Obviously this loss is very very disappointing as I have been playing so well for the whole tournament and looked to be on a safe track for a final. Had I won the match today 21-18 21-15, which I was 1 point away from doing, I would have been extremely pleased with my performance here in Norway, but now I feel disappointed more than anything. Such a thin line between succes and failure!
Anyway I will try to focus on all the positive things in my game this week, even though it's not easy right now! This results also means I will break back into top 50 in the world. Haven't been ranked that high since octobre last year, so that's another thing to be happy about...
