Nhat Nguyen reached the last eight of the Youth Olympic Games’ badminton tournament following a series of impressive wins, eventually falling to China’s number one seed Shifeng Li.
The Irish number one, from Clare Hall, started his tournament with a 21-11 21-6 victory over Kettiya Keoxay of Laos. Today Nguyen followed this up with another dominant 21-8 21-5 win over Mateo Delmastro who was representing the host country Argentina.
He then defeated Uriel Francisco Canjura Artiga (El Salvador) 2-0 to move into the quarter finals. Speaking after that win, he said: “I felt really comfortable on court, my technical shots were working really well so I’m happy with my performance.”
Nguyen was happy with how he implemented his strong points: “It’s good to have power and technique but there’s also the ability of knowing how to use it. Recently I’ve been learning how to use it, so it’s good it’s working so well.”
He ultimately came unstuck against Shifeng Li to miss out on a place in the semi-finals and a shot at the medals.
Nguyen commented following the defeat; “Obviously, I’m quite disappointed. I had my chances and I’m disappointed I didn’t take them.
“He [Li] played better towards the end of both the second and third sets, so that’s what I have to take away and learn from for the next. We have the world juniors in two or three weeks, so I’ll have a couple of days rest here and come back and prepare for that.”
