Nguyen Thuy Linh made her mark by defeating the former world badminton champion.

Vietnam's No. 1 badminton player Nguyen Thuy Linh excellently defeated the former world badminton champion. Photo: VBF

At the 2025 Badminton World Championship, Vietnamese badminton has 6 athletes participating, including: Nguyen Thuy Linh (ranked 22nd in the world in women's singles), Le Duc Phat (ranked 69th in the world in men's singles and men's doubles), Nguyen Dinh Hoang and Tran Dinh Manh (ranked 126th in the world), Vu Thi Trang (ranked 170th in the world in women's singles) and Nguyen Hai Dang (ranked 57th in the world in men's singles).

On the first day of competition, Vietnam's No. 1 badminton player Nguyen Thuy Linh did not disappoint her fans, even though her opponent was former world No. 1 Ratchanok Intanon from Thailand, currently ranked 10th in the world. As soon as the match started, Ratchanok Intanon took the initiative to accelerate early by scoring 6 in a series of 7 points to take a 7-3 lead, but Nguyen Thuy Linh calmly responded by scoring 8 in a series of 9 points to lead 13-10. From here, the Vietnamese badminton beauty did not let her opponent catch up and before 4 game points created by Nguyen Thuy Linh at the score of 20-16, the female tennis player who was the world champion quickly surrendered 17-21.

In the second set, Nguyen Thuy Linh launched a series of 5 points to break away early, however, the world number 10 persistently chased until 10-10 and then fought until 13-12 with the advantage leaning towards the Thai star. But by scoring 6 out of the next 7 points, Nguyen Thuy Linh excellently created a large gap of 18-14, making her opponent lose breath. As a result, Nguyen Thuy Linh created 3 match-points with a score of 20-17 and quickly took a place in the second round with a 21-18 victory. The current head-to-head record between these two beauties is 2-1 in favor of Nguyen Thuy Linh. In the second round, she will meet Scottish star Kirsty Gilmour, ranked 31st in the world, with the task of "collecting debt" at the Indonesia Open 2024.

In the previous match, Le Duc Phat lost 1-2 (20-22, 21-16, 9-21) to tennis player Julien Carraggi (Belgium, ranked 59th in the world). In the first game, the Army player should have won when he created 3 game-points with a score of 20-17, but unexpectedly lost 5 points in a row. Le Duc Phat brought the match to game 3 and then ran out of breath. After being scored 5 points in a row by his opponent twice, he let the Belgian tennis player quickly close the match with a series of 6 points. The men's doubles of Nguyen Dinh Hoang and Tran Dinh Manh are expected to take the field in the early morning of August 26 (Vietnam time).

Source: https://hanoimoi.vn/nguyen-thuy-linh-ghi-dau-an-khi-danh-bai-cuu-vo-dich-cau-long-the-gioi-713961.html