Bring It On!

Hi all,

Finally it's time for another update on this blog. I'm sitting here in my couch thinking about the next three weeks where I have three big tournaments to play. Dutch, Denmark and French Open.

These tournaments are very important for my season 2010/2011. I’m currently ranked 34 in the world, just about 3000 points away from top 28, which is what I’m looking to improve to before the end of this year. So you’re probably thinking why top 28? Well it’s very simple really as 28 is the number of players who are automatically qualified for the main draw in the Super Series events. With Korea Open in January being the first of the new Premier Super Series tournament and offering a historic huge total prize pool of 1.2 million dollars, it’s quite obvious that this will be a high priority event for every top player in the world. As a result of this Malaysia Open the week prior will most likely be almost as strong and therefore avoiding having to go through some very tough qualification rounds is a big goal for me.

If we look a bit longer term my biggest goal for this season is to finally qualify for the World Championships in London 2011. If I do, it will be my first big individual championship and I feel like it’s about time for me now. To qualify I need to be top 24 by the start of May next year. To achieve that I need to earn some points and the best chance for me to do so, is by performing in the main rounds of the Super Series. So again; avoiding the qualifying rounds in January would be good.


Anyway enough talk about ranking and points. That was just to fill you all in on what’s the thought behind playing three big tournaments in a row. I can’t think too much about this in the coming weeks. I have to focus (and I am) on playing well and enjoy it, then the results will follow.


I feel like I’m playing at a high level at the moment, not fantastic, but still good enough to be confident. My movement is excellent, which is something I feel like have improved a lot over the summer and up until now. I don’t weigh as much as I used to and I feel like I have more explosive strength in my legs. My endurance is also very satisfying, so physically I can’t really complain.
The sharpness and quality of my shots, mostly from the back of the court, is not at its best though. Usually this is one of the stronger parts of my game, so I hope it will get better as the tournaments go on. Maybe I just need to get back into my “tournament rhythm”.

Mentally I feel relaxed and ready to go. I’m excited about competing again and even though I don’t feel as well prepared as I did before the Bitburger Open I’m still very happy with my preparations. It’s always good to know you’ve done your homework – nothing more could have been done and now it’s just about getting on court and give it my best.

Nothing will ever be perfect though, not ths preparation period either. Unfortunately I was struck by a little bad luck this morning in training. Ever since I had that infected toe which forced me to miss the Thomas Cup finals in May my nail has been a looking like somewhat of a rainbow in mostly dark colors. It’s hasn’t really given me any problems, but this morning during a drill on court I suddenly felt some pain in the very same toe. After a little while I chose to stop to have a look at it. When I took off my shoe I could quickly see that something wasn’t great as my sock was mostly red around the toe and I was quite confident it was white when I put in on this morning…

90% of the nail had apparently broken, but not enough to fall off and now it’s painful to wear shoes. The pain is bearable and the doctor gave me something to wrap around the toe to take away most of the pain. I think it will work out fine and no matter what it’s not going to keep me away from the Dutch, Danish and French courts, that’s a fact! Still a little annoying, but I also had a minor accident in one of my last trainings right before Bitburger Open and I did pretty well there. So maybe it’s a good sign! :)


I will travel to the Netherlands tomorrow afternoon, so my next update will be from Almere, Netherlands. You can find the draws and a lot more on their website: http://www.yonexdutchopen.nl/

That’s it for now, nothing left to say but; BRING IT ON! :)

/HK