By Richa Naidu
LONDON (Reuters) – The 2023 Malaysia Open was just another leg on the elite badminton world tour for most, but to Anders Antonsen it meant everything.
Rewind to the middle of the previous year: Antonsen was in the middle of a routine practice session when he felt something go badly wrong.
“I made a movement that seemed pretty harmless but it felt like a stab by a knife straight into my groin,” the Dane told Reuters in an interview.
“It felt super painful and a bit weird, and I had never experienced that before.”
Antonsen, who had finished fifth at the Tokyo Olympics and was ranked second in the world at one point in 2022, was unable to play for the rest of the year and plummeted down the rankings to number 30.
“I would have to work my way up again, and it was definitely with a lot of uncertainty,” Antonsen recalled.
“Do I still have that level? Can I trust my body? All these questions, all this uncertainty, but I was working super hard, I got a new team of coaches so some new inspiration.”
After months of rehab and leaning on family and friends to help stop him from falling into dark places, Antonsen readied himself for his return to the world tour in the first tournament of the 2023 season in Kuala Lumpur.
He was aware that winning his first match back against China’s Weng Hongyang would be “a big, big breakthrough, mentally” but initially the injury, or memory of it, hindered him.
“In the first (game) I really got my ass kicked; I wasn’t moving very well,” Antonsen said with a laugh. “My thoughts were more on ‘how is my body feeling’ than ‘what should I tactically do in order to win this match?’.
“I was really, really close to losing the second game, down with a few match points. But then I managed to turn it around: won the second game, and then 21-19 on the third, as close as it gets.”
It was a massive moment for Antonsen and his new coach Joachim Persson.
“I think both of us had tears in our eyes just from winning a first-round match,” the 27-year-old said.
Antonsen went out in the second round to Indonesian Anthony Sinisuka Ginting but he was on the comeback trail, clawing his way back up the rankings to the point where he looks set to be fourth seed in Paris.
“It would be a dream come true to win a gold medal, that’s for sure,” he said.
Antonsen will be up against stiff competition, of course, not least from fellow Dane Viktor Axelsen, who won men’s singles gold in Tokyo and is the current world number one.
“We’ve been practicing together for many years but we have also been fierce competitors,” Antonsen said.
“I’ve been inspired by the way he works, how hard he works, how disciplined he is, how structured he is.”
(Reporting by Richa Naidu, editing by Nick Mulvenney and Peter Rutherford)
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