After my injection back in March, I sat down and made a tough training program physically and on court in the lead up to the European championships. The last 2 times I have played in the Europeans I have made the quarterfinal both times so it is a tournament I enjoy and seem to play well at. Unfortunately this year was different. After what I felt was a great training period where I worked very hard in every aspect of my game to then suddenly playing 1 of the worst matches I have played all year was tough for me. I couldn’t understand it at all and I was so frustrated. Nothing went right for me during the match and I could not get into the game at all.

 

There is nothing more frustrating. After the match I sat alone and went over everything I had done the previous 5 weeks regarding my training, physical, weights program and my mental training, there was not 1 area I could pick out where I could say, ok – I maybe messed up here or I didn’t do good enough in this part. I could not find 1 thing that I was not satisfied with. After I while I called my coach and had a long talk with him and I told him exactly what I just wrote about how I could not find 1 area where I felt I didn’t do well enough and he said that no matter what, I have improved as a badminton player be coming to that conclusion. For the rest of the day (a long day) I couldn’t help but think about what he said. I found it hard at the beginning to believe that I had improved after doing all that hard work and then having 1 of the worst games all year. I finally put it down to just having a bad day and every single person in the world has them. I did learn a lot in the period up to the Europeans and thinking back, I will for sure be able to use it in the future. I worked extremely hard in all areas of my life and badminton and I did feel extremely good, I will make sure that next time I wont be having a bad day!!!! Next up for me in the last week/tournament of the Olympic qualification period where I will travel to Portugal to play. I will leave very early Thursday morning and will play my first match Friday morning. I am seeded 3 and I will go to Portugal a relaxed guy without any expectations. I know the game I want to play, I trust the game I have and I will push as hard as I can to make it work.

 

Thank you all for the continued support. Please check out my Facebook page, as I will be doing a lot of competitions over the next few months.

 

Scott