Vietnam's top female badminton player, Nguyen Thuy Linh, earned a historic milestone on October 24 by entering the top 20 in the Badminton World Federation (BWF)’s world rankings for the first time, VNA reported.

According to the latest BWF rankings, Linh has a total of 45,550 points, rising four places from 24th to 20th globally, the highest ranking achieved by the 1997-born player from the northern province of Phu Tho so far.

Nguyen Thuy Linh in a final match against Japanese player Akari Kurihara. Photo: VNA

This achievement was achieved thanks to Nguyen Thuy Linh's good performance in October. Nguyen Thuy Linh reached the quarterfinals of the Finland Open and the 1/8 round of the Denmark Open respectively. Thanks to that, the player born in 1997 earned an additional 9,360 bonus points for a total of 45,550 points, jumping from 26th to 20th on the BWF rankings table. Since the beginning of 2023, Nguyen Thuy Linh has advanced 31 places, from the 51st position.

This is the first time Nguyen Thuy Linh has entered the top 20 in the world. She is also the first Vietnamese female badminton player to do this, previously the best achievement belonged to No.34 Vu Thi Trang in June 2017. Meanwhile, the Vietnamese men's badminton legend Nguyen Tien Minh is still the only Vietnamese player in the world's top 10, with his best position being 5th in September 2013.

In the qualification rankings for the 2024 Paris Olympics, she also climbed to 15th place in the women's singles category, being within the group of players eligible to participate in the Olympics. However, the final list of participants will not be confirmed until April 2024, so the Vietnamese player will need to continue competing in international tournaments to maintain her high ranking and achieve her goal of securing a spot in Paris.

However, if she does not compete from now until April next year, Nguyen Thuy Linh's rank will drop, and may fall off the list to attend the Olympics. Therefore, she needs to compete to at least maintain her current ranking.

Nguyen Thuy Linh stops in round 1 of the 2023 French Open.

After the conclusion of the 2023 Asian Games (ASIAD), Linh joined in a series of tournaments, reaching the quarterfinals of the Arctic Open and the second round of the Denmark Open.

She has a match against Chen Yu Fei at the French Open 2023 on October 25. However, unable to defeat world No. 3 tennis player and reigning Olympic champion Chen Yu Fei in round 1 of the French Open, Vietnam's No. 1 tennis player Nguyen Thuy Linh also made remarkable efforts. Linh stopped in round 1 of the 2023 French Open.

It is expected that after the French Open, Nguyen Thuy Linh will go to Germany to compete in the Hylo Open tournament in the BWF World Tour Super 300. However, due to the fairly dense competition schedule, Linh decided to change her plan. She will return home to focus on recovery, then from early November will go to Korea and China to compete in two tournaments in the World Tour Super system.

Nguyen Thuy Linh's goal in late 2023 is in the top 20 in the world as well as win tickets to the 2024 Olympics. The race to win spots in the 2024 Olympic badminton event is called "the road to Paris," calculating points for players. Rackets participate in tournaments in this system from May 1, 2023 and ending on April 28, 2024.

Previously, at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Vietnam had two participating representatives, Nguyen Tien Minh in men's singles and Nguyen Thuy Linh in women's singles. Now Nguyen Tien Minh has not competed internationally and the only hope of Vietnamese badminton will be Nguyen Thuy Linh.

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