Badminton sneaking up on us

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This article was published 31/01/2020 (2276 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When you think of racquet sports in Canada, it’s likely tennis first comes to mind.

After all, the country is coming off of a wildly successful 2019 highlighted by Bianca Andreescu’s U.S. Open victory — the first Grand Slam won by a Canadian — and the red and white reached the Davis Cup final.

While Andreescu, Denis Shapovalov and Milos Raonic grab all the headlines, there’s another racquet sport that’s quietly on the rise in the Great White North — badminton.

Only two Canadians — Michelle Li and Martin Giuffre — qualified for the 2016 Rio Olympics. This summer in Tokyo, the Canadian badminton team will be much larger. This time around, the Canadian squad could feature up to eight players, and national team head coach Mike Butler, who represented Canada at the 1988 Olympics as a player, said they should at the least have a minimum of five. There are still three months of qualifying events to be played, but with the way the rankings are looking, 2020 could be a huge year for the Canadian badminton scene.

“I’m going to put the majority of the credit on the players,” said Butler, who hails from Saint John, N. B., and has been coaching in the program for the past three years. “They put their time, money, energy and sacrifice to try to (qualify). That is one of their ultimate goals and we’ll see what we can do at the Games. I’m quite excited about that possibility. I’m cautiously optimistic we will have seven or eight.”

One of the promising up and comers hoping to be headed to Tokyo is 18-year-old Toronto native Brian Yang. Before Yang had even finished high school, he was a national champion. At last year’s nationals, Yang, who was 17 at the time, won first place in men’s singles to make him the youngest Canadian national champion in history. Yang is also coming off an impressive summer where he helped Canada to gold at the 2019 Pan Am Games in Lima, Peru, in the mixed team event and claimed a silver medal in men’s singles. He’s no stranger to playing against more experienced competition, as in 2017 he reached the men’s final at nationals as a 15-year-old.

“Obviously, there’s an age difference, so I’m at a disadvantage you could say,” Yang told the Free Press Friday afternoon.

“Maybe my body and my physical level won’t be as high as some of the older players as they have more years on me, but the skills that I have, the shots that I can use, the mentality, the strategy of what shot to use in which situation, I just took advantage of that more and that’s how I was able to beat these older guys.”

Yang and the rest of the country’s top players are in Winnipeg this week at Prairie Badminton for the 2020 YONEX Canadian National Badminton championships. Yang didn’t become a favourite at nationals overnight. His journey in the sport started when he was eight, as he used to tag along with his parents when they’d go play for fun at community centres. When Yang finally got a racquet into his own hands, he was a natural.

“It turns out I was pretty good,” said Yang, a kinesiology student at York University, who lost in a semi-final Friday night to Br Sankeerth (16-21, 22-20, 21-19).

“I could hit the bird over (the net) and actually connect with it a lot of the time. Then my parents’ friend said he could see a lot of potential in me. I also just really liked the sport so I continued with it. As the years went on, I improved a lot.”

Yang might’ve won the top Canadian prize last year and reached this week’s final four, but the No. 61-ranked player in the world still finds himself behind a fellow Canuck in the international rankings — Jason Anthony Ho-Shue. The 21-year-old from Markham, Ont., is the 53rd best player in the world and grabbed the bronze medal in singles the Pan Am Games. With doubles partner Nyl Yakura, Ho-Shue won gold in Lima. For Yang to make it to Tokyo this summer, he’ll have to jump ahead of Ho-Shue in the rankings in the coming months.

“We look at the short term goals of these Olympics coming up, (Yang) is in a battle with (Ho-Shue) so we’ll see how that ends up. He has some work to do,” Butler said.

“But 2024 looks very promising for Brian. At the world junior stage, he was ranked second at one point. Now he’s out of junior, but he still competes so well, even on the senior ranks… Great upside and great potential. I know Tokyo is going to be one of his short term goals. It’s going to go right down to the wire.”

Before it’s decided who represents Canada in men’s singles action in Tokyo, the national title must be awarded. Ho-Shue defeated Imran Wadia in straight sets (21-7, 21-12) to schedule a date with Sankeerth in this afternoon’s final. Today is the final day of competition, with championship games set to kick off at noon and run till 4:30 p.m.

taylor.allen@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @TaylorAllen31