hen superstars Christinna Pedersen and Kamilla Rytter Juhl hung up their rackets for good earlier last year, Denmark lost its strongest pair in women’s doubles badminton.
The gap between the 2016 Rio Olympics silver medalists and their potential successors was quite large.
Recently, however, Denmark has caught a glimpse of a new light, with a promising performance from Maiken Fruergaard and Sara Thygesen at last week’s Daihatsu Indonesia Masters badminton tournament in Jakarta.
The world number 30 duo experienced a Cinderella tale in the Super 500 tournament – or grade two – in the Badminton World Federation’s (BWF) world tour event. They managed to reach the final round, which was their first experience in the higher level tournament.
The tale ended midway, just as Cinderella’s, when they lost the 2020 Indonesia Masters title to Indonesia’s Greysia Polii and Apriyani Rahayu.
The Danes maintained superb, consistent performances on their way to the final as they stunned two top Japanese pairs, namely Yuki Fukushima and Sayaka Hirota in the second round and 2016 Rio Olympics medal gold medalists Ayaka Takahashi and Misaki Matsutomo in the Saturday’s semifinal.
Thygesen said, “It is hard to find words right now,” knowing the fact that in last year’s contest they would not have even dreamed of reaching the semifinals or final over the weekend in Jakarta.
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