Mahmoud impressed in one the most applauded matches by the audience.
In yesterday’s round of 16 at the YONEX Dutch Open Mahmoud played against Ygor Coelho, who was the first Brazilian badminton athlete representing his country in the Olympic games in 2016. Aram Mahmound won the almost one-hour-long match of three games 21-18, 18-21, 22-20. “I feel very happy. First time I played against Ygor, he’s a really good player. Luckily I manage to play my game in this kind of circumstances. It was tough mentally and physically as well. My tactic was to cover the net as much as I could”, shared Mahmoud.
Clara Azurmendi (Spain) had once again a great performance at the Dutch Open, where she faced Lin Hsiang Ti (Chinese Taipei) in women’s singles. Azurmendi lost the first game 15-21 but managed to recover and win the other two 21-17 21-19. “I feel quite happy. It’s my first tournament since my injury so I think it’s a quite good match to start”, says Azurmendi, who had surgery on her left foot earlier in the summer.
Among yesterday’s matches we also had a positive comeback for the English pair Chloe Birch and Lauren Smith, who haven’t played together since the Commonwealth Games in July, after an eight month break of not playing together: “It has been a little while so it’s nice to get a win. We’re getting used to be a partnership again, but we know we are strong”, shares Birch. The English double faced Kirsten De Wit and Alyssa Tirtosentono (Netherlands) and won 21-13 23-21. “I think it was a positive performance, we really dominated that first set. The tactics were good”, says Smith.
In men’s doubles, Ruben Jille and Ties Van Der Lecq (Netherlands) battled against Marcus Rindshøj and Andreas Søndergaard (Denmark). The Danes won the first game 21-19, but the Dutch pair took over in the second one, also winning 21-19. In the end Rindshøj and Søndergaard won 23-21. “We’re devastated by this loss, despite we fought hard, it didn’t go well. I think we have to look forward and try to improve”, refers Ties Van Der Lecq. “Every match is a tough one, but we know what we can do. We also know that we are not in our best period, so it was going to be hard anyway”, says Ruben Jille. The Dutch men are now focusing on the next tournaments: “It didn’t go our way today and that’s really frustrating but that’s the way it is sometimes, we have to accept it and move on”.