Does anyone have an update on Soraya de Visch Eijbergen of The Netherlands? A couple of years ago, she appeared to be a very promising singles player. Paging demolidor
Oldhand, what happened to old-fashioned detective work? This site had a blurb from Feb 6, 2014. Google translates as :"Soraya Visch Eijbergen (1) had to give up injured in the second game of the finals with a 12-16 disadvantage" She also has a twitter feed: https://twitter.com/sorayadve The latest tweet (as of this posting) says: "I'm still injured. Uber cup is therefore too early for me .."
She plays in the german league, but she withdrew for her last matches and missed the last team match last weekend. http://tournamentsoftware.com/sport/player.aspx?id=832339F4-68CE-48CB-A4F5-38CD4A9122F5&player=486
She recently injured herself at the national championships and this bothered her too much in the ws final match and forced her to withdraw. Was a lock to win the title for the first time ... Before that iirc she beat Line Kjaersfeldt at the Estonian International, but who hasn't in recent times (jk); beaten Olga Konon in German league play as well but Konon was just coming back from a long injury layoff (and retired at the recent european team championships with another inury). All in all it's always a hard transition from junior to senior, even more so with a physique like her's. But there is no one left so she is the future of Dutch WS for the time being (after the retirements of Wentholt & Peters, EC U19 WD silver medalists in 2011). Having said that the national federation has funneled the available funding towards the WD and XD so her focus might have to be on XD ... edit: see she hasn't played XD in a while so not going that route it appears. Now, how about that Piek & Muskens
Good info, demolidor on this promising player. Nice video, too. Would you be so kind as to summarize what Ms. de Visch Eijbergen. (as euphonious as spoken Dutch is, not all of us are fluent.)
She starts off with revealing she has a particular favorite shirt and racket and sets the shirt aside for the final (/makes sure she can wear it in the final). Then she talks about herself as a player, being more focussed on (spotting) the opponents weaknesses than playing to her own strengths and then strike when the time is right. Pre-match she starts getting anxious/nervous upon first seeing the opponent but when the match is set to start: "it's time to shine" (in the words of former Dutch swimming star Inge de Bruijn), and want's to show everyone how well she can play. To finish off she tells us her short term goal out of juniors is to become national senior champion (after already being two time U19 WS champ) and longer term goal is Rio 2016 and will do whatever is needed to get there . [I think the video was produced after getting a nomination for sports talent of the year 2012 in her hometown The Hague, so just over a year old; here is the 2013 one featuring another badminton player Mark Caljouw http://vimeo.com/84574871]
Cool slow-motion video of Soraya in her quest to capture a second (consecutive) national singles title last month. Which she managed . Unfortunately she also ended up with a partially torn achilles tendon (50% torn) and will be out for 3-4 months (two years she had to quit in the final due to injury so at least it didn't end prematurely this time) [video=youtube;dH_z9x0F-ok]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dH_z9x0F-ok[/video]
Soraya de Visch Eijbergen: “Sometimes, I have to be more happy on court” (Photo: Mark Phelan) Born in Papendrecht, The Netherlands, 25 years old and a professional female badminton player, that is Soraya de Visch Eijbergen. And the Dutch has big goals for 2018: - My big goal for this year is to be better ranked. But more important for me is to be more steady in my matches. The first half of the season was good, the second was not as good. A badminton break Playing badminton on a professional level can be stressful, one reason for the winner of the Dutch Open in 2015 and 2016 of doing a badminton break this summer: - If you play a season without any breaks, you are done with playing badminton at one point. You do not have that much pleasure with playing your matches and you will be tired of badminton at one point, physically as well as mentally. - The breaks give me the feeling of missing badminton and wishing to come back on court. Then, I am willing to work hard for that. I had a lot of training sessions this summer. Missing the pleasure of playing badminton The women’s single player’s first tournament of this winter season has been the Belgian International in September. And De Visch Eijbergen’s participation was successful: She reached the semi-finals. - If I look back to the season 2018/19, I intend to see that all my training was worth it, that I am more steady and that I like playing my matches. I lost having pleasure with playing badminton sometimes in the past. Thinking about Tokyo 2020 Looking forward to the Olympics 2020 in Tokyo, De Visch Eijbergen has a chance to represent her home country. - I am not focusing that much on the Olympics. I want to do my best in every tournament and focus on that. If I do well, there is a big chance for me to go there. But if I think about it now, it is too much pressure for me. I want to play tournament for tournament and do training for training. A good competition Regarding the qualification for Tokyo 2020, the 25-year-old can get the one spot as women’s single player in the Dutch national team. - I do not think too much about it right now. The one who is playing the best and doing the best, is the one that is supposed to go. You do not have to look at each other for that, you go your own way to the top. I think the competition is good, we make each other better. - Honestly, it will be tough for me to go to Tokyo. Of course, I might have a chance, but I have to be more steady to keep up on this high level and I have to play more tournaments before. But if I would not believe in it, I would not play a lot of tournaments now. Regarding her performance on court, Soraya de Visch Eijbergen has made up big goals for herself: - I want to be more happy on court. I am too tense at the moment, that is what I have to learn. But I have a mental coach and a good environment, such as good people around as well as behind me, who help me to improve that. I play the best, when I am happy - Winning tournaments makes me happy, I have not been winning any so far, so I would be very happy to achieve that. Source: http://www.badmintoneurope.com/cms/default.aspx?clubid=4685&cmsid=239&pageid=5381&m=6688642