Not quite as popular as Leon Marchand, their swimming champion, but the French have taken a liking to their badminton players, three of whom made pre quarters in men’s singles. That’s 3 of 16. Though all lost, one of them Toma junior Popov brought the roof down playing Anders Antonsen on Thursday night.
He had lost the opening set 21-6, but made a spirited comeback in the second and almost pushed the Danish World No 2 all the way.
Antonsen had already been troubled by a fighting HS Prannoy the previous night, but things got really testy when Frenchman Toma started hitting the flanks and galloping about to bridge the gap. The second set went from 9-16 down to 22-20 levelling for Toma, as the raucous French crowd went beserk.
It’s when sitting in the coaching chair, one of the French coaches felt the heat. Tasked with using the ice pack on the player, he started putting it on his own head and neck, as the adrenaline shot up and temperatures increased inside Adidas Arena.
Antonsen facing the second night of resistance from a player ranked below him, was massively annoyed but did well to keep his head as Toma once again went from 16-19 down to narrowing gap to 19-20 in decider.
The crowds were delirious. A full house and loud, they waved flags, propped up giant Toma face cut outs like Marchand at Olympics and raised a proper din piling on the pressure on Antonsen. Two things were clear – Antonsen is looking good to medal, unless he’s had enough of the tensile pressure on his nerves. And Denmark has a rival on its hand, in the form of France, in Europe.
The French fans, not unlike the football faithful, are firebrands and utterly un-shy to scream their hearts out. Paris put up quite a show, and it continued next day as mixed doubles pair of Thomas Giquel and Delphi Delrue took the opener 21-19 against the French Cheng-Zhang.
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The French tricolour and their various noise instruments travel extensively from village club tournaments to the international one. And Antonsen felt the singeing heat. The man who felt it more was the French coach, as he sat with the ice pack on his head and neck through the end game.
© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
