Hello, So first things first my name is Nicholas Bonkowsky and I am not necessarily new to this site/forum. I have been on here before under the username smash_master but that was created a while ago when I just started to play badminton. Time passed and after the recent year and playing more tournaments I wanted a more appropriate username one that was more “professional” to say the least instead of a nickname that doesn’t necessarily apply to me. So I will be getting Kuwn to deactivate or delete or close/lock my old account whatever he can do. Anyways a little bit (more) about me, I started playing badminton really late in life when I was around 18 (17 and ½ to be exact) I picked up a racquet for the first time and jumped straight into tournaments and training. 4 years later I have played in well over 70 tournaments and 6 international tournaments to date including Canadian Grand Prix and US Open Grand Prix Gold. I was born and raised in Canada but I play for Trinidad and Tobago. I mostly only play singles and exclusively train for singles with one of my all-time favourite players as my coach, Ardy Wiranata. I have used quite the variety of racquet brands, been sponsored by companies in order from start to now: Forza, Black Knight, Zelm, Victor, and now Yonex. So currently using the Yonex Voltric 70 which is the right racquet for me right now, it feels good so I will use it. I have huge goals in the sport and will be working my way towards them in the near future, so we will see how things go with regards to them. Well that’s all for my reintroduction. Nicholas
This is true and I validate that I will no longer be using this account “smash_master” and will be only using “nbonkowsky” due to interest of having a more professional account that better represents me. Have already requested to Kwun to lockout/disable or whatever he can to this account.
"Welcome", Nick Good idea to put a more mature face to your serious endeavours into competitive badminton. Good luck and continue to keep us apprised of your journey.
I noticed that you created/added a new YouTube account, instead of the Smash_Master one. Welcome again keep training
Wow, started at 17 and a half and played in international tournaments and has Ardy Wiranata as a coach. You're my hero
Thank you all, yes a more mature face both on here and on youtube is deffinetly something that I wanted to do for my adventures into more competative badminton. haha yes I started late (very late) but not going to give up and going to take this as far as I can go with it. I will be happy to make it into the top 150 in the world in the next year or two and by legimate ways not just playing a ton of tournaments and getting destroyed first round but getting a lot of points out of it. I want to win some good matches and reach further rounds in Internationals. Keep working hard too!
You're ranked almost as high as my coach, and he started when he was 8 lol (though truth be told he doesn't play in tournaments that often anymore) Anyway, good luck with everything! I'll be rooting for you whenever I'll see your name in tournaments.
Thanks, I will be trying to keep up a constent blog as best that I can. http://nicholasbonkowsky.blogspot.com/
Weird, somebody who comes from an exotic island as Trinidad and plays badminton.... Nice path you took, I hope you will be in the top150 as you want.
[MENTION=7]Cheung[/MENTION] the link you posted bought me here. @NBonkowsy Lovely Read.... Big Lara/Narine fan here. Hope you reach your targets.
Thanks God you are here. I was searching for a Belgian at Chit-Chat the other day. Can I ask you a couple of questions about the sporting system in your country?
You guys went from 69 to 2 in football in 2 years and 35 to 4 in hockey in 4 years. Such progress at elite level team sports is unprecedented in history. Normally it takes decades(even centuries) to achieve what you guys managed in the metaphorical second. What are you guys doing differently that the rest of the world isn't? Was the government from 1995-2005 really into sports or something?
