Nguyễn Thùy Linh is a Vietnamese player currently ranked #49 in BWF’s World Ranking for Women’s Singles. With over 130 wins in women’s singles, doubles and mixed doubles, at just 23 yeas of age, she is becoming one of Asia’s best players!
Linh fell in love with the sport at a very young age. “I loved badminton and usually spent hours watching people playing and borrowed my grandfather’s racket to enjoy myself,” she told in an interview with Việt Nam News. But in order to pursue her career in badminton further, she had to leave Phu Tho Province and train in Hanoi. There, she joined the Hanoi badminton club, and then later joined Da Nang club.
However, according to her interview with Việt Nam News, the road to becoming a professional badminton player has not been easy. A few years after she’s been training in Hanoi, her mother wanted her back home as she didn’t see her being a player in the future. “I had to focus on my academic studies as my mother expected. But she could not stop me from playing. Sometimes I played truant to have time for ‘my love’, ignoring her anger,” she says.
Sadly, her mother passed in 2014 and it was her grandfather that encouraged her to keep on playing. But unfortunately just a year later, her grandfather also passed. Linh says that despite the sadness, she continues to work hard and is determined to be even better than before. She says in the interview: “My life is around the shuttle and racket. I train twice per day, five days a week. I have to work harder ahead of tournaments. I don’t want to let people down because of my poor performance or lack of preparation”.
Linh kept her promise and worked hard, and because of that she achieved a lot of great things. In 2015, she represented Vietnam at the 2015 Southeast Asian Games at just 18 years old. The following year, she won her very first international title at the 2016 Nepal International, where she also entered the top 100 in the world ranking for women’s singles for the first time.
In 2017, her success tripled as she won gold three times at the Mongolia, Lao and Italian International. In 2018 she won the Bangladesh International, and in 2019 won the same tournament again. She also was runner up at the Norwegian, Hungarian and Austrian Open.
At such a young age, she has already fought hard to earn the medals she’s won. We hope that this year and the following years, she continues on her path to success. Badminton Asia wishes her the best of luck.
source: vietnamnet.vn
