In 2016, the Dutch mixed doubles of Jacco Arends and Selena Piek was on the podium of the European Championships with a bronze medal around their necks. This year, they want another medal.
Arends and Piek are happy with their preparations leading up to the European Championships and hopes the build-up will give them a good result.
- We have had a few weeks back home and we have also gone to Denmark for a couple of matches, but apart from that we have had a good build-up to this tournament, Arends told Badminton Europe after they walked off court in Huelva.
- So, it’s good, we are feeling confident and we are really looking forward to the quarterfinals tomorrow.
Rematch in the quarter
The Dutch lost the recent clash against their quarterfinal opponents Mark Lamsfuss and Isabell Herttrich from Germany, and Piek is up for a rematch.
The 5th seeded Germans took out the unseeded favourites Niclas Nøhr and Sara Thygesen from Denmark earlier on Wednesday.
- They are a really good pair; they beat the Danes in two games, they were playing very well. So, we will try to go back to the hotel, prepare the best we can and hope to go all in tomorrow.
An easy start but a tough goal
- When we saw the draw, we knew we had good chances of proceeding to the quarterfinals, but we always try to take it one match at a time and I think we did that very well today, Piek pointed out.
And when asked if this was going to be the year where they win another European medal, Arends responded;
- Yeah it definitely will be! Otherwise we should not even be playing tomorrow if we did not believe that. So that is definitely what we are going for!
Find more results from the 2018 European Championships here