It has been over a year since we have seen the best of Denmark’s Anna Thea Madsen. The Dane has been out of the game with a knee injury for the majority of 2017 and only arrived in Dublin after getting a late promotion from the reserves to take part in this week’s tournament.
“I have no ranking so all I can hope for right now is to get some luck like this week and get into tournaments off the reserve list.”
Madsen seized the opportunity yesterday storming through her qualification matches before finding her main draw rhythm today with a pair of wins over Sara Penalver of Spain and fourth seed Chloe Birch of England.
The Dane now heads to the quarter final where she will play Yvonne Li of Germany. Madsen, while rusty, looks to be growing with each match and hopes that 2018 will see her get back to her best.
“Right now I am enjoying my badminton. It has been a long time away with injury. I have to also try not to be to hard on myself as clearly the shots are in my mind but sometimes the body is not ready to play them yet. It will take some time”
Like Madsen Soraya DeVisch Eijbergen is also on the comeback trail after a year out. The Dutch woman has been steadily progressing since her return in September and has stormed into the quarter finals in two easy matches in Dublin.
Nguyen building on Welsh win
Nhat Nguyen (pictured above), the rising star of Irish badminton, continued today where he left off in Wales last week. The Irishman had an impressive Scottish Open before winning in Cardiff and looks to be one of the favourites on home turf this week.
Two easy wins so far for the 2016 European U17 champion but the same can be said for the other favourites as Sam Parson, Kai Schaefer and Iikka Heino all look to be heading to a podium showdown in Dublin.
In the mixed doubles top seeds and European bronze medalist Sam & Chloe Magee suffered some jitters loosing a set to European U19 silver medalists Alex Dunne and Eleanor O Donnell of Scotland. The Irish steadied the ship to win 21-15 in the deciding set to keep the dream of home success alive.
For all results from day two at the Forza Irish Open click
HERE
For a photo gallery from today’s play in Dublin click
HERE