From Nguyen Tien Minh to Nguyen Thuy Linh: Vietnamese Badminton and the Missing Relay Leg

In 2026, at an international badminton tournament in Jakarta, I sat in the fourth row, directly behind the Vietnamese team's technical area. A young Vietnamese player led 18-14 in the deciding game, three points from the end. Then he lost 19-21. What I remember most is not the score, but the sound of shoes scraping the floor. In the last three points, that sound slowed noticeably, as if the legs already knew something the mind had not yet admitted. In the stands, people blamed nerves. I thought of something far more prosaic: breathing rhythm, the number of steps per rally, and the way a sport prepares its athletes before they step onto the court. The 21-point scoring system, officially adopted in 2026 according to Badminton World Federation (BWF) data, pushed badminton into a different era. Before that, with the serve-change system, a match could last for hours and players won through patience. Once every rally carried a point, speed became the most expensive currency. A top-level rally now lasts only seconds, but a top-level match can contain more than a hundred such rallies. Physiologically, this resembles repeated sprint training more than distance running. That is why I always view badminton through the eyes of someone who once stood on an athletics lane: it is a sport of short, repeated explosions, and victory lies in the ability to recover between them. At the organizational level, the BWF World Tour divides tournaments into tiers, from Super 100 to Super 1000, alongside the World Championships and the Olympic Games. Vietnamese players must travel constantly between continents to accumulate ranking points, which means high costs and a recovery budget that gets worn down. A player without a support team will burn out within months, while a player with proper backing can sustain form across an entire season. Against that backdrop, Vietnamese badminton presents a paradox both beautiful and sad. Nguyen Tien Minh, born in 2026 in Ho Chi Minh City, was the first Vietnamese player to break into the world's top 10, won a bronze medal at the 2026 World Championships, and appeared at three Olympic Games (2026, 2026, 2026). For more than a decade, he almost single-handedly represented elite Vietnamese badminton on the international stage. In women's singles, Nguyen Thuy Linh, born in 2026, is the successor, having climbed into the group of the world's strongest players and become a pillar of the national team. What stands out is the gap between those two names. Indonesia has a Thomas Cup tradition and a dense club system. Malaysia produced Lee Chong Wei and continued to develop subsequent generations. Thailand built an entire generation of women's singles led by Ratchanok Intanon. Vietnam still operates on a model of one star per generation. That model produces outstanding individuals, but rarely creates a continuous stream. To understand why, badminton must be split into two separate problems: the problem of an individual and the problem of a system. In the individual problem, the Vietnamese have an edge. Badminton demands agile footwork, deception, and wrist skill, qualities that traditional training, with footwork drills and sparring in small indoor halls, can cultivate well. Nguyen Tien Minh is living proof: he did not possess an exceptional physique, but compensated with extremely fast feet and subtle shot-making. Nguyen Thuy Linh is the same. Both are products of personal hard work and a touch of natural talent. The system problem is entirely different, and this is where the gap shows. A top player needs three things an individual cannot create alone: sparring partners of equal caliber, a sports-science team, and a domestic tournament calendar tough enough to forge competitive character. Without players of the same level to train against every day, an athlete will only ever reach his own ceiling. Without sports science, their body will soon pay the price in the 21-point system, where every point is a sprint. Without quality domestic tournaments, they will only get used to winning at home and collapse when they face the wider world. I once misannounced an athlete's hometown, and realized I too was running in the wrong lane. That memory taught me that most mistakes in sport come not from a lack of effort, but from putting resources in the wrong place. In Vietnamese badminton, resources are often poured into supporting the star who already exists, rather than building the foundation for the next star to emerge. Looking to football, I see a similar lesson. In football, every goal begins with a run, and athletics taught me to see that. A counterattack starts when one player accelerates past the defenders behind him. Mbappe did not change football; he merely exposed that football had changed long ago, toward speed and physicality. Badminton is walking that same path, only earlier and more fiercely, because the court is smaller and the number of points is greater. Based on my experience watching matches, I notice a recurring pattern: Vietnamese players often start very well, fade in the middle of the match, and run out of steam at the decisive points. The problem is systemic rather than individual. It is the trace of a physical and recovery foundation that has not been built methodically. A European or Chinese player steps into the 18th point of the third game with the same breathing rhythm as at the first point, because they are trained to do so. The difference lies in thousands of supervised training hours, in the weight room, in nutrition, and in calculated rest. One notable technical shift is the rise of flat, fast rallies. The high, deep clear used to seize the initiative is gradually giving way to flat, net-hugging drives that force the opponent to react in a split second. In the 21-point system, the first three shots of each rally often determine who holds the initiative. This demands reflexes, wrist power, and the ability to read situations trained to the level of automatic response. The doubles events expose the problem even more clearly. Singles is the story of one person; doubles is the story of a system. To have a strong pair, you need a group of players large enough to be paired, together long enough to understand each other, and enough tournaments to forge coordination. Vietnam is nearly empty in international doubles, while neighboring countries treat doubles as a spearhead. That is a regrettable blind spot, because in regional and even Asian arenas, doubles medals are sometimes easier to win than singles medals. I remember sitting in a tournament's technical room, hearing a coach say the team lacked people to spar with. That sentence haunted me more than any results table. A good player placed in an environment without opponents of equal caliber will gradually lose his edge. The transfer market is merely a relay race with dropped batons, and in badminton, that baton is the next generation. When no one runs the next leg, the runner ahead, however fast, can only bring the team home alone. Here, I want to go against a common belief. Many people think Vietnam lacks talent, or lacks funding. I do not think so. Talent keeps appearing steadily, and funding, though limited, has never been the only barrier. The problem lies in how the story is told and how resources are allocated. When the media and fans look only at one star, all resources such as sponsorship, experts, and attention flow there too. The star is cherished, while the young players behind quietly leave the game for lack of opportunity. In other words, the very glory reserved for the lone hero is eroding the foundation that would produce the next hero. This is a paradox football has also experienced: football nations that rely on a single golden generation often collapse right after that generation retires. Vietnamese badminton faces a similar risk, if Nguyen Thuy Linh, approaching thirty, cannot find someone to share the load. A good host is not the one who says the right thing, but the one who knows when to stay silent between two games. A sport is the same. There are times when what is needed is not applause for the shining star, but silence long enough to hear the shoes of children training in the indoor hall at six in the morning. Vietnamese badminton does not lack a great player. It lacks a relay lane long enough to carry those players forward in succession. The day a young Vietnamese player steps into the third game and keeps the same breathing rhythm as at the first point, that moment will belong to an entire system, not to him alone. It will be the moment an entire badminton nation finally ran in the right lane.