Father Hamid Khan was a Singapore Olympian and a seven-time national champion and thanks to her dad's influence his daughter Insyirah Khan is ready to keep her country's flag flying in the shuttle sport.
The 18-year-old from the Singapore Sports School in Woodlands is in Suzhou for the Badminton Asia Junior Championships and Singapore's hope in the women's singles in individual events which began on Wednesday.
Insyirah played a big role in helping Singapore reach the quarter-finals in the Mixed Team Championships from Group D which had eight-time winners China and Nepal but fell to former champions Korea in the quarter-finals.
In the individual event, which began at the Suzhou Olympic Sports Centre, Insyirah cleared her first hurdle with comparative ease, needing only 15 minutes in her 21-7, 21-2 win over Mongolia's Kherlen Darkhanbaatan.
However, a tougher hurdle waits for Insyirah in the second round on Wednesday when she faces Hong Kong China's Happy Serena Cheng Sin Yan but she is ready to face the challenges to accomplish her mission to add another Olympic chapter to the Khan family.
"Competing in the junior championships is a learning process but I am determined to make good," said Insyirah, who has two elder brothers Irsyad and Imran.
Insyirah, who has played in Indonesia and Vietnam, did not go unnoticed and was selected to the Singapore senior badminton team to the 2017 SEA Games in Kuala Lumpur.
Incidentally, Insyirah took up badminton seriously after a "heavy defeat" in a match while in primary school. There has been no looking back for her since then and is Singapore's hope of establishing a name international badminton tournaments.
"I have set my sights of qualifying for the 2024 Olympics (Paris). There are many more hurdles to overcome in my badminton career. Changing speed and improving my footwork on the court is my weakness," said Insyirah.
For her, the journey has just begun.
