When I got back to Copenhagen, I was preparing for the Swedish International and slightly tweaked something while training. I played a Team match a few days before and got my first win as #1 men’s singles in the Liga. However, I did not feel confident that my “injury” was fully healed and pulled out of Sweden to prepare for Uganda next week.

In the meantime our team here in Copenhagen had another team match, we are trying to stay in the Liga since we are one of the bottom teams. We played vs Team Aarhus our arch rivals, and gave a good beating…..well not really-we narrowly won 4-2, but it felt good to take it. My match was another barn burner (since it seems its the only way I know how to play). I made a huge comeback in the second set only to let this Dane beat me 18 in the third. Once again my body is broken. But not my spirit!

I will be flying to Uganda on tuesday and hopefully humpty dumpty will be put back together and take the title. It will be the Bonanza in Uganda

Here is the link and stay tuned!
DRAW

The second match was Peter Mikkelsen (Lillerød) against Jan Ø. Jørgensen (Aarhus). Of course Jan is the favourite on paper but Peter has upset one top player after another including Peter Gade! So we had no idea which way it would turn out. But unfortunatly for us Jan was VERY stable and not giving Peter one inch to work with. Peter was also struggling with his attacks and made too many unforced errors. Jan won the match in two sets 21-11 21-17

The third match on court was the men’s doubles. It was Peter Steffensen and Mikkel Elbjørn Larsen (Lillerød) against Jakob Staael and Kasper Henriksen (Aarhus). This match was a real uncertainty…we felt that it could go either way. Both teams were very even but Aarhus had the home court advantage. Unfortunatly that advantage paid off for Aarhus and their men’s doubles won in two entertaining sets 21-19 21-16.

At this point it was 2-1 for Aarhus and we needed to win our fourth match,which was our ladies doubles. Our ladies doubles has been the pillar of our team. They had only lost one match all season coming into this match. Rikke Olsen Siegemund and Ann Nielsen (Lillerød) were the ace up our sleaves. But we knew that their opponents Line Kruse and Lena Frier Kristiansen (Aarhus) were going to be a very tough team to beat. Well they were not just tough to beat, they were unbeatable. As hard as our ladies tried last night,the magic was not there. The Aarhus ladies made quick work of our girls and took the match 21-14 21-18.

I was then the next match to go on. I knew that we were down 3-1 and needed my match as well as the mixed doubles who were playing on the court beside me. I was matched up against Morten Brødbæk. Last time we played he beat me in two sets….so I was set on revenge. We started off very even by playing alot of mid court shots to each other and trying to win the net. But even if we won the net it was tough to put the shuttle down, so it took a little bit of variation from the backline in order to create an oppening. I was down 11-10 at the break but stuck with him all the way until 19-19. I then got a set point 20-19 but he did not let me have it so easily. He pushed me until 22-22, where I finally was able to win the set 24-22.
In the second set we played until 11-8 but then was told that the match was over. We both looked very confused but then realized that the Lillerød mixed doubles had lost the match which meant that Team Aarhus won 4-1. Once the team match is over they stop everything, including our match. It was a shame not to be able to finish him off. But even more sad is that Lillerød was now out and the season is over.

I have to say it was a very exciting season and I enjoyed every moment and the great team spirit that Lillerød brought to every game. I look forward to play for them again next season.

Last night we played the #2 team in the League, Værløse. Once again we were the underdogs but we believed we could do some damage if everyone plays well like last week. Again we were banking on 3 matches to force it to a golden set. The two men’s singles and the ladies doubles. But again all of those matches were 50/50. We almost had a great surprise with our men’s doubles leading 18-13 in the third but then losing it 21-19. It was a small dose of what was to come. In our first men’s singles Peter Mikkelsen played against Kasper Ibsen. They had an incredible battle that was top notch badminton. Peter had a 20-17 lead in the third, when he got a VERY controversial line call against him to give Ibsen 18-20. Peter did not regain his composure and then lost the next 4 rallies. That was the final blow for any hope of winning, since it put us 4-0 down. The last two matches were mine and the ladies doubles. Our ladies doubles, who are arguably the 2nd best pair in the league, won the match in 3 tight sets,19-21 21-18 21-17. My match was in incredible victory in itself. I was playing against Emil Vind, who had beaten me a few months ago in a “tournament team match”. My goal was to redeem myself but he put up some incredible resistance. He took the first set 21-14 by always being high at the net and keeping me under pressure. The second set I was down 14-10 when I decided to change tactics and play as fast as I could. This enabled me to take back the net and win alot of quick rallies. I took that set 21-17. In the third I started off well to be up 11-8 but then found myself trailing for most of the second half. I could not put anything through him. He went up 20-17! But then somehow I calmed down,refocused and just let the rallies happen. I won 5 straight rallies to take the match! I could not believe it. However it still meant that the team lost 4-2.
We still keep our 5th place position but I think this shows that we are the Dark Horse in the league and should never be underestimated.

Our next match is this tuesday against Vendsyssel. They are in 5th place but have a very good team. We will see what happens!

We then had our second team match on Thursday. This did not give us much time to pick ourselves up but we were pretty fired up since we were now playing at home and had no intention to lose two times in the same week. This time we played against team Odense. Once again the team match started with the mixed doubles and boy ohh boy what a match it was. We ended coming back from being 11-16 down in the third! This was very important because now we were in a great position to win the whole thing. Our men’s doubles and ladies doubles did a great job putting us into a winning postion which was 3-2 for us. I was the last match and had a home crowd backing me up. I was set to play against a player from Israel Misha Zilberman. I had never played before but I know that he is very quick. All through the first set it was close..and a very strange match since he was always doing alot of trick shots and putting me into funny postions. However my ability to stay steady and wait for my openings proved to be better and I took the first set 21-17. In the second it was much of the same…him being quite speedy and tricky but always opening the court with a cross lift or an unwise attack. In the end I was victorious and won the match 21-17 21-16. The home crowd went wild and I felt in my element….I love this game:)

Our next team match is next month so we will be getting ready for that. However I have a tournament this week in Ukraine which I will write about in the next upcoming days.

We had the chance to play the first team match at home. We started great by going up 5-1 with me winning my singles in two straight sets. I thought the team match was in the bag until things started to go wrong. We lost the next 3 matches and let them come back to 5-4. All of a sudden we had a ballgame. We had one ladies doubles left and 3 men’s doubles. We brought the boys in for a little pep talk. It seemed to have worked since the ladies and all the boys won their matches! We took the team match 9-4 and also became the leaders in the play offs.

We have 3 more team matches to go. The next one will be against Humlebaek Badminton Klub on the 27th of February. We look forward to playing since we are a VERY confident team:)

Our next team match will be after the new year’s in January against Taastrup. So that means the team has time to enjoy the holidays and put on their winter fur:) After our match against Taastrup the play-offs will start and we will see if we can go up into a higher division.
Good job Lyngby and get the rest you deserve:)