World Championship 2025 has been a test of nerves. He or she who controls it best wins. – Steve’s Badminton Blog and Website

This year’s badminton world championship is a spectacle not for the skills on display, but for the tension and drama on court. Frustrations, bouts of anger, sudden euphoric celebrations and tears of joy and despair… And these are just my emotion while watching the matches. What about how the players who are on court? Let’s discuss.

Shi Yuqi

In this tournament, we see Shi Yuqi making so many uncharacteristic mistakes. Net shots which were usually shoo-ins for him went into the net and caused him to lose a point. This seemed to be a recurring theme where at some point in the match against Victor Lai, all his net shots went into the net. Smashes went out at the sides, lifts are half court, etc. The match looked like one inexperienced player was getting a bad case of nerves and the experienced player was having an easy time because the other player was making so many mistakes. Strangely, the player who looked like the inexperienced one was Shi Yuqi and the player who looked like the experienced one was Victor Lai.

Nerves and pressure gets to even the best players. Even the current world number 1, Shi Yuqi suffers from it. We saw that in the 2024 Olympics in Paris where Shi Yuqi lost tamely to Vitidsarn. And we can see that in the World Championship of 2025 as well.

Lin Dan

Managing one’s own emotions is perhaps the most important aspect of competitive sports. It is a hallmark of champions, because to be a champion must be able to control his nerves. Big game players such as Lin Dan seem to be a natural winner as he is able to control his nerves from a very young age. Being able to control his nerves means he will be a good player in competitions. When combined with wonderful skills and physical strength, that is what makes a legendary player.

Chen Long

Not all champions are natural winners who can control their emotions. Chen Long for example learnt how to be a winner and became the number man in China when he took over the mantle from Lin Dan around 2014. And from then on, Chen Long did not look back and dominate the scenes, until Kento Momota returned from suspension in 2017.

Kento Momota

Kento Momota too learnt to be a winner the hard way. He was world junior champion, but the step up from junior badminton into senior badminton is extremely difficult. It took him a long time to adapt, and when he was finally showing that he could adapt to it in 2015, he got banned for illegal gambling.

During those years in the wilderness, Momota must have went through huge swings of emotions. His ban did not have an end date, so he was not certain whether his badminton career was over at a tender age of 22. Whatever went through his mind then made him tougher and stronger. He developed so much stability in his emotional state, so much steel. When the chance for him to return came in 2017 and his ban lifted, he wasted no time and went on a winning streak which saw him become World Number 1 in the end of 2018.

What I could imagine happened to Momota was not that he feared losing, but he feared that he could not live up to his potential and waste his life away. And that fear of failure at a greater level is what gave him the drive to succeed. He did not want to relive his ordeal of not being able to play badminton ever again and made the most of it. He went on to enjoy every moment of his time on court. He enjoyed the challenge of beating the best opponents. He enjoyed the stress, the tension, the drama. And that made him the champion he was. Even though his career was tragically cut short by the accident in Malaysia, he has lived his moment and achieved what he wanted to do in badminton. That was what allowed him to accept his time in badminton was up when he was 29 and retired.

Conclusion

In conclusion, there is no one fixed way for a player to learn how to control his nerves. Everyone has their own way to do so. In order to be a champion, the only thing certain is that, he who controls it best will win.

That’s it for this entry.

Until the next entry, eat well, get plenty of rest and keep the badminton going!