Antonsen feeling right at home with limelight on Axelsen

PETALING JAYA: Viktor Axelsen will be defending his world crown as the sentimental favourite and this could work wonders for another Dane Anders Antonsen (pic) who is looking to cash in on playing at home in the World Championships.

Antonsen is a Copenhagen native and it’s only natural that he picked up badminton and had gone on to become one of the country’s rising stars until injuries halted his progress temporarily in June last year.

The former World No. 2 made a comeback during the World Championships in Tokyo last year but decided to lengthen his layoff to recover from injuries and only returned to competitions where he played in the Malaysian Open in January.

Antonsen, 26, took his time to settle down but finishing runner-up at the Singapore Open in June and winning the Korean Open last month gave him the boost he very much needed to make an impact again at his own backyard.

Backyard would be the ideal term as Antonsen lives just five minutes away from the competition venue – the Royal Arena – and one can’t get any nearer than that feel of totally being at home.

Antonsen believes playing at home will help more than being a distraction.

“It’s so comfortable just to be at home and hopefully that can get me in the zone a bit,” Antonsen told BWF.

“It doesn’t feel like you’re at a World Championships – usually you have to travel for that.

“So, there are good things and bad things that come with it being on home soil and you need to be aware of that. And the good thing is that I feel relaxed.”

Antonsen have also done well at the major event where he was runner-up to Kento Momota of Japan in Basel in 2019 and a semi-finalist in Huelva, Spain, two years ago.

Besides Axelsen and Antonsen, Denmark will also be hoping for Rasmus Gemke to become the first player to win the men’s singles title at home in the major event.

Flemming Delfs (1977), Peter Rasmussen (1997) and Viktor Axelsen (2017 and 2022) have won the men’s single titles for Denmark but those victories were achieved on foreign soil.