I have just returned home from 2 weeks of holiday in Copenhagen, and yes, I did of course go to the WC, that was the main reason for the trip. I will write a summary of everything for my fellow BC members. The story started last year, I was thinking about going to the -23 WC and was planning to buy a 1 week season ticket on nov 1st at noon when tickets released. However, last minute I had some doubt, I also saw that it was not possible to get a great seat when buying an all-week ticket. After hesitating for 15 minutes all season tickets had already sold out (most good tickets probably sold out at Denmark open 2022 where there was a presale). I then considered buying 7 individual one-day tickets but it never materialized. I had actually given up on going when a friend who had gotten hold of 6 all-week tickets with good seats contacted me and offered me a ticket. It turned out to be a group trip with 7 days of badminton and after the WC, some days of touristing in Copenhagen. I will comment on selected matches later but decided to write about the boring parts first. Royal arena where the tournament was staged is a modern arena with capacity for about 10000 spectators when organized for badminton. Comfort when seated was adequate. The first 2-3 days it wasn’t too crowded but then it started filling up and for the weekend the arena was absolutely packed with fans. The atmosphere was absolutely amazing, it beats all the tournaments I have attended before. One thing that was spectacular was the players entrance to the courts before the matches: being elevated up to the platform with their flag and some basic data being displayed on the big screen behind them and then walking down the stair on the red carpet onto court to the wild cheer of the crowd. However, a packed arena does bring some inconveniences when it comes to one thing: food. There were too few food stands inside the arena and the selections of food was limited. Besides that, it could be a real hassle to order and get your food. Except for what can be classified as snacks (popcorn, soda, candy etc.) what you could get seemed to be hotdogs of two types, pizza slices and some other thing which I don’t know what it was. To make an order you approached the desk and paid, then got a receipt with a number. Then you had to wait (together with 50+ people) for the staff to call out your number in Danish(!) before you could pick up the food. This was very rapid the first 2-3 days when the stadium was relatively empty but it was a nightmare in the later stages of the tournament. There were possibilities to exit the arena and walk 5 min to a Burger King (where the service collapsed during the weekend from badminton fan overload) or walk 10 min to a large nearby shopping mall with a large variety of restaurants. I had preferred to be able to grab a quick bite of food inside the arena to going out eating and missing matches. Outside the arena there were some tents selling Yonex and Victor stuff, I cannot recall that I saw any Li-Ning tent. Inside the arena Badminton Denmark had a small souvenir shop. Actually, there were fewer shops selling different merchandise than I had expected. During the tournament days we stayed at a hotel within walking distance from Royal Arena and after the conclusion of the tournament we moved to a hotel in central Copenhagen to do some touristing (which I will not cover in my report). The area surrounding Royal Arena is quite boring I must say, architecture was more or less awful, luckily we spent little time outside the arena during match days. Four courts were used day 1-4, two courts for day 5 (QF) and one court for day 6 and 7 (SF and F). Hawk-Eye was available on ct 1&2. The stadium could be very noisy when Danish players played, the crowd went crazy. Ear-plugs were needed.
My comments on selected matches: Day 1: LKY-Abian: LKY was too good, Abian had no chance. LKY actually looked in good form it felt like. VA-Nhat N: VA absolutely destroyed poor Nhat to the elated home-crowds support, very one sided. SYQ-Penalver: SYQ struggled massively in the opening game, almost dropping it to the Spaniard, he somehow recovered and won in straight games in the end, but the performance made me question SYQ’s form. CTC-Kevin Cordon: This was a bit of a hyped up match in my group of friends, as one of them was sure KC would pull off an upset but I said it wasn’t going to happen. The opening game was quite even at first with KC playing some nice smash winners but eventually CTC got in control and figured out how to play and from there on he won easily. LZJ-JC: This was the most hyped R1 match up in the whole tournament. It didn’t live up to expectations. LZJ played an almost prefect game destroying poor JC without having any mental collapse. NTY-ZJP: This was one of the best R1 matches, 2 very close games with NTY pulling through 21-19 26-24. ZJP is steady and covers the court well, but NTY showed great determination to take it in 2 games. Sankeerth(CAN)-Artiga(El Salvador): A match between 2 less known players, Artiga is quite a short player but very hard working. He displayed a ton of fighting spirit to finally win the match. The quality of play wasn’t excellent but still a good match. Cristo Popov-Nguyen Hai Dang: For me this was the best match of day 1. Hai Dang is a left handed player, relatively short but he had plenty of fighting spirit and showed some real guts to almost take down Cristo Popov in an 81 minute match. There were many long, good rallies. I hope Nguyen Hai Dang can become the next top player from Vietnam in the near future. This match being so drawn out plus the fact that CP also played MD led to him being fatigued already in R2 of MS and lost tamely to Axelsen. One disappointment was the absence of Anthony Ginting. I absolutely understand and support his reason for not playing, but ofcourse it was sad to not see him playing.
Day2: Sen-JHJ: This was a very good performance by Sen I felt, JHJ is a difficult player but Sen was in total control and could play his preferred style to great success. I felt that Sen was in good form after this victory. ASY-GJW: I just felt sorry for GJW, she has nice skills but is limited by her poor shape due to her health conditions. ASY looked strong as always. VA-CP: As I wrote earlier, CP was already out of gas from the long R1 MS and playing MD so Axelsen had another free ticket to the next round. I hope Popov bro’s quit playing MD and focus 100% on MS in the future. LGZ-WTW: This was the best match of day 2. A crazy 3 game match lasting 86 minutes. WTW managed to play his strong all out attacking style quite well to win G1, then LGZ won G2. In G3 WTW went all out attacking to take an 11-2 lead, he also lead 16-9 before he got tired and LGZ leveled at 16-16. From there on it was a struggle for WTW who was tired but he pulled through and won 21-19. NO-PVS: Very convincing win by NO, PVS didn’t perform her best for whatever reason it felt like. HSP-CADW: A very good victory by HSP, he was looking strong this early on. ZSW/HYQ-Lamsfuss/Lohau: Germany did well in G1 to get 17 points, however in G2 CHN got going and destroyed them 21-4!
Day 3: Leo/Daniel-Lane/Vendy: Not a very good performance from Leo/Daniel as they were close to losing in 2 games, they did pull through however and won but not very convincing. I already here counted them out from medaling. SYQ-Gemke: In this match SYQ actually performed better than in his previous match. It was a convincing victory. Gemke tried all that he could, but SYQ was just too good. After G2 interval it looked like Gemke had mentally or emotionally collapsed, and it didn’t take long before SYQ had prevailed. Perhaps Gemke expected SYQ to play as poorly as he did in R1? NTY-AA: One of the better day 3 matches, crowd was wild cheering for AA. G1 was very tense. NTY played a wonderful dropshot to make it 20-20 but unfortunately lost G1 in the end. He could never come back in G2 and sadly was eliminated. I felt like NTY should have been able to win the match had he taken G1. Alf/Ard-Lee/Yang: A good MD match. TPE pair looked to have plenty of firepower and the advantage of being underdogs. They managed to get the attack and score points. I don’t know what was the problem with the Indonesians (if there was any problem?) or if TPE was just too good. Kim/Kong-Hsu/Lin: TPE WD played well and almost eliminated KOR fancy pair. KSY called for medical timeout at a crucial stage in the end of G2 which may have disrupted TPE momentum and in the end KOR won the match. Nishimoto-Carraggi: KN Struggled for some reason, first 2 games were really close but in G3 KN prevailed on better fitness as his less fancied opponent crumbled. This could have been a 2 game victory for Carraggi had thing gone a little different.
Day 4 (R16): CQC/JYF-Jolly/Gopichand: I had expected some sort of fight from this promising IND WD but CHN pair totally dominated the match. I felt at this stage that I knew who would be the WD champions already. Chen/Toh-Gicquel/Delrue: A good entertaining XD match, 2 very close games but in G3 MAS pair surged ahead to win 21-12. Leo/Daniel- Sat/Chi: Quite a hyped MD match, however, I myself had already declared to everyone that IND would win due to INA pairs poor form which was evident against Lane/Vendy earlier. I was right but it did go to 3 games with IND dominating G3 21-9. A good entertaining match overall. Feng/Huang-Christ/Boje: Danish pair with the home support caused a big upset and defeated the fancy CHN pair in straight games. I think CHN pair succumbed to pressure, they knew they were expected to win this match but the Danish pair played with admirable fighting spirit. Astrup/RAsmusen-Ong/Teo: This was where the DEN MD amazing run started. They won very convincingly which gave them a lot of confidence for the rest of the week. Ong/Teo didn’t have enough firepower to hurt the Danes. LKY-HSP: Probably the best match on day 4. HSP played well to take G1, LKY came back strong trying to play an attacking game to win g2. G3 was close until 19-19 when HSP plays an amazing service return against the drift which lands on the sideline. Then LKY almost leaves a shot at the back but changes his mind and hits it into the net. This win was already an amazing performance from HSP. LKY looked to be playing well except for the last point misjudgment. Had LKY won instead of HSP he would probably have given VA a hard time also. VA-CTC: Convincing start in G1 for VA. In G2 CTC got a few points lead which really seemed to bug Axelsen. VA doesn’t like to be behind, he is best when in front score-wise. In the end VA managed to win G2 21-19, had he lost G2 then who knows what might have happened. AA-LZJ: LZJ was simply not good enough. I had expected him to win after his great performance earlier in the tournament but he was a bit too error-prone and failed to take charge in the rallies to eventually score with his big smash. I felt he should have tried harder to gain control of the net and then go for full power body-attacks when AA lifted. KV-Sen: A good 3-game match. KV seemed to be in control of most of the rallies throughout the match with LS managing to score some nice points here and there. But what LS could come up with was not enough. KV looked very steady, his performance doesn’t seem to drop noticeably even when the match goes on for over one hour. He still has insane defense and can retrieve almost everything, that added to his overall great control and skill just made it impossible for LS (or anyone) to defeat him. LSF-WTW: To everyones surprise WTW managed to totally unsettle and pound All England champion LSF with his crazy attacking gameplay. WTW had massive leads in both games and was up 9-1 and 14-4 in G2. WTW did play many perfect hard smashes all over his opponent’s court. I believe LSF was shocked and neither he nor his coaches found any response that could salvage the match. Fikri/Maulana-Hoki/Kobayashi: I didn’t watch the match in it’s entirety but from what I saw it was a really good performance by the INA MD. Daddies-He/Zhou: Daddies were just too good, to witness their skillful play again in person was such a privilege. They really are superb. Too bad that age is catching up with them. SYQ-NKL: A close and dramatic match. SYQ won G1 convincingly. NKL fought back to take G2. In the latter part of G3 SYQ had a 3 point lead (17-14 I recall) and he seemed to get back pain or become tired. There were at least two reasonably long medical timeouts following in late G3 where SYQ had some sort of treatment. In the end SYQ won 22-20 and jumped up and down in joy celebrating. HKG coach was unhappy, and it looked like from the distance that he went to the tournament referee to launch some sort of complaint.
Day 5 (QF): Kim/Anders-Sat/Chi: I had IND pair as guaranteed winners but surprisingly they lost. They could not live up to expectations, DEN played better than expected. VA-HSP: match of the day. VA had a good start to G1 but HSP got going and played better in late G1. In G2 Prannoy played from the better side of the court and was successful in playing drawn out rallies in which VA got very little advantage and few opportunities to score points. In G3 Prannoy kept up his gameplan which was working well. VA doesn’t like to be behind score-wise. It usually leads to him collapsing and making many errors then loses confidence. That was exactly wat happened as Prannoy prevailed. G2 ang g3 were convincing wins for HSP. Beating LKY was much harder actually. AA-KN: It was just a terrible performance by Nishimoto losing big time to AA. Tsuneyama probably would have done better. CQC/JYF-Matsuyama/Shida: This JPN WD was the only pair that could challenge the mighty Dora pair somewhat, however they still lost. ASY-NO: G1 was very good and saw NO play amazing to bag opening game. After that, ASY with her excellent court coverage and control managed to wear down poor NO. Already in early G2 it was clear that NO had lost the match. Hopefully NO can keep up her good performance without getting injured again. KV-WTW: A good MS match, WTW won a close G1 playing his regular attacking style. He gradually becomes fatigued and has pain in his leg however. KVs steady play prevails in the end, insane defense and controlled play just takes its toll on WTW who delays the game so much he eventually got a yellow card. Kang/Seo-Daddies: KOR pair is physically too strong. Daddies cannot overcome them despite being so skilled. Age caught up, too bad. SYQ-Naraoka: Great start by KN dominating G1, played with great resilience and with good attacks. G2 was closer, SYQ almost leveled it at 20-20 but luckily for KN he managed to squeeze through.
Day 6 (SF): Seo/Chae-Wata/Higa: Surprisingly JPN had no chance, it was total domination from KOR. Too strong defense and attack. SSJ covered the court very well, it felt at times like he just played MS with Chae standing at the net. Watanabes speed could not get JPN any advantage surprisingly. Marin-Akane: I only watched half of G1 before going to eat (and got stuck in the mess described earlier trying to order hotdogs), but I’m surprised that AY lost. Liang/Wang-Kim/Anders: Great start by CHN, playing their regular fast style to take G1. Somehow DEN turned it around to take G2 and 3 which was surprising. Probably nerves ruined it for CHN pair as they both looked nervous. DEN played with no nerves and b*lls of steel and eventually prevailed. Some celebrations followed and the arena went crazy. ASY-CYF: ASY overall was better even if CYF gave a good fight. Both players are strong movers around the court with nice footwork. Controlled steady play, moving each other around to find openings. Happy that ASY could win unlike in Sudirman cup when she lost to CYF. HSP-KV: HSP starts well to take G1, however he, like many others succumbed to KVs steady play and gets increasingly tired in G2 and G3. KV skills become more and more evident as the match progresses and Prannoys tank was too small to sustain his great performance from earlier rounds. Kang/Seo-Aron/Soh: This match resembles so many MAS-KOR MDs I have seen in the past. Already when KKK/TBH played Jung/Lee the same kind of pattern was visible. After a hard fight in G1 MAS pair is just outplayed as KOR players are fitter and faster and can maintain a higher level for the whole duration if the match. Naraoka-AA: Cruel opening game lasting almost 45 min. Naraoka was behind AA 15-19 but came back and then a challenge at AA baseline which was in with about 1 mm eventually tipped the opening game in KNs favor. KN started doing long serve on AA in G1 to turn it around and prevent AA from doing tricky serve returns and instead make it easier to play long rallies. KN had great defense against AA attempted flat play targeting KNs body. In G2 KN eventually took a good lead and won as AA probably got tired and lost hope not finding any way to win.
Day 7 (Finals): ZSW/HYQ-SSJ/CYJ: This was a great match indeed, in G1 KOR started out quite strong ad won. In G2 CHN managed to play their best and won convincingly. There were some great rallies and a crazy dive save winner by ZSW. In G3 KOR somehow managed to pull away, CHN attempted a comeback but could only save 3 MPs. Very good win by KOR. CQC/JYF-AR/SFSR: CHN pair just too good, INA had little chance. Well deserved victory as Dora and partner were clearly the best WD in the tournament. ASY-CM: ASY covers the court seemingly effortlessly, she is controlling most rallies giving CM little chance to play her favored attacking game. ASY also showed great mental strength in the match, especially in G2 at 10-10 when Marin was making a comeback. ASY just took over and won 11 points in a row to become world champion. CM seemed to be angry after the match as she didn’t want to shake hands with ASY before giving her a lecture about sportsmanship or whatever it was. How come Marin could not handle a little celebration from ASY? KV-KN: This match was very long 1h 49 min. There were many long rallies already in G1 and the crowd was booing sometimes. I think the booing was awful, obviously these players know each others game well having played many times including in 2018 WJC final. Both are strong defensive grinders. If one of them had went on full attacking mode early in the match he would probably run out of energy and lose. The players primarily play to win, not to entertain the fans. KV defended diving here and there bleeding all over the court which led to several delays in the match. Eventually KN won the grueling opening game narrowly. In G2 the grinding continued. In the end of G2 KV looked fresher of the two and he managed to level the match. In G3 KN was clearly getting more tired. Then it was possible for KV to start playing more attacking and utilize his skills to score points. He ran off to a good lead. KN tried what he could but KV still had his great defense intact, which cannot be said about the now tired KN. KV winning the WC was incredible. He was able in all his matches to maintain his quality of play much better than all his opponents who faded when they got tired. I have little doubt that had HSP not defeated VA in QF, then KV could have done it himself in SF. After medal ceremony during the interview KV apologized for the delays his match caused which was fun of him. KMK/SSJ-KA/ASR: This was the match the whole Denmark had looked forward to. The crowd booed at KOR pair when the umpire introduced them at the beginning which was not very nice. Danes took G1 playing well pumped up by the crowd. KOR managed to be slightly better in G2. In G3 it was really close around 15-15 before KOR eventually dashed the DEN pairs dreams of winning WC at home. KOR defensive play and flat play was very strong as expected. Kang had plenty of power in his smash, Seo just managed to play well enough despite probably being tired from all his matches earlier in the tournament. Winning 2 WC titles was incredible by SSJ.
Final thoughts: Overall, it was an incredible tournament. If Denmark hosts another WC or tournament of high caliber I would gladly return to watch it. KOR winning 3 gold medals was unexpected but a nice surprise I must say. Disappointing tournament for some nations, especially for Indonesia winning only 1 silver. ASY has arrived as a real badminton superstar, I believe she has this rare mental strength like Lin Dan which together with overall great skills makes her close to impossible to beat if she is in good form. KV actually achieved his target of the year which was winning WC and reaching top 5. Quite fun to watch his interviews now that he achieved it: KV clearly is the best MS player of his generation, he has proved it many times before by winning 3 WJC, WC silver last year and now WC gold. Watching him play live makes it easier to appreciate his greatness compared to watching his play on tv. He is very fast in a defensive way, he can recover into position to be ready for the next shot after doing crazy retrievals unlike other players. He is also very calm and collected. Even if he looks slightly chubby, he has incredible stamina and can keep up his high-quality play throughout even very long matches. Did any other forum member have the privilege to attend the WC this year? If so please write a row or two about it.
