It was a Danish double at the Arctic Open badminton championships as Mia Blichfeldt and Anders Antonsen claimed the singles titles in contrasting styles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There was also joy for the Malaysians with their newly forged pair of Aaron Tai-Yap Roy King capped a dream week by winning the men’s doubles title.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Blichfeldt put months of rehab behind her with a confident victory over top seed Ratchanok Intanon in the women’s singles final.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Dane player has been mostly missing from competition since April due to injury and was overwhelmed with her strong comeback in Vantaa, Finland as she beat Thailand\u2019s Intanon 21-17, 21-13 in the 42-minute women’s singles final.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Right now I’m a little bit lost for words,” Blichfeldt told the organisers after the match. “I don’t know where to put myself. I want to go in the corner and just sit. I’m very happy, and I’m also so proud of myself. If someone had told me this in April when I was going through a really long rehab period that I would come back on this level, I wouldn’t have believed it.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Blichfeldt was out of competition for four months after winning the women\u2019s singles bronze at the 2026 European Championships in April and did not return to the court until the World Championships in August.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Exiting the 2026 Worlds in the Round of 16, she opted to miss the following tournaments to prioritise her rehabilitation and made her comeback here at the Arctic Open, where she faced one of her childhood heroes, Intanon, in the final.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Since I was a little girl, I have always admired her so much, so I also needed to put that superstar starstruck feeling I have about her away,” Blichfeldt said. “To beat her for the first time today is a big milestone for me, but also for me as a 12 or 13-year-old.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The final started evenly, with the two players exchanging points until Blichfeldt took the lead after the third point. Intanon fought back and scored four consecutive points to cut the gap from six to two, but Blichfeldt halted her progress to take the last two points and seal the first game 21-17.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The second game proved an even tighter duel at the start, as the players exchanged leads four times, before Blichfeldt broke away after the 14th point, scoring seven consecutive points in a rush to her first title of the season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Blichfeldt said she did not feel any physical discomfort in her knees throughout the tournament. Rather, it was the mental part of returning to the tour that required the most adjustment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“When you are out, and everything you love is taken away from you, you really need to dig deep,” the Danish player said. “You have other perspectives of life also because suddenly you just have a normal life and not this rushy, competitive performance life. So when we left from France, I was like, ‘OK, let’s go. No pressure, just play’. And I think for my whole career, I’ve never felt like this before. The bad stomach feeling and very nervous and feeling like everything is life or death, I didn’t have this feeling this week, so that’s amazing, and I hope that I can take this further on.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Antonsen needed almost double the amount of time as Blichfeldt to secure his Arctic Open title, as he fought through three gruelling games in 16-21, 21-16, 27-25 to beat Japan\u2019s\u00a0Tanaka Yushi in the final.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Coming into the final as the fourth seed, Antonsen quickly put up points on the scoreboard, but Tanaka kept applying pressure and never stayed far behind the Dane. The Japanese player overtook him at the midway point and again as they fought for the final points, winning six rallies in a row to take the first game 21-16.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Carrying that confidence into the second game, Tanaka managed to gain a three-point lead over Antonsen before the two-time Olympian caught up and overtook him. Antonsen kept that lead through the end of the game for a repeat of the earlier score, 21-16, only now in his favour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The decisive game turned into a real battle, with the two players never more than one point of each other for the majority of it, until Antonsen ultimately claimed the win with 27-25.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“This was one very tough match,” Antonsen told Infront after. “Yushi made it so difficult for me. It was clear from the beginning that he had a plan to make it physical and to make me move on a big court and I think he played phenomenally. I’m so proud the way that I was able to fight back into the match because after the first game and in the beginning of the second it didn’t look very well for me today, so I’m super proud of myself.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was the second Super 500 title for Antonsen this year, following his victory at the 2026 Thailand Open in May.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
FINAL RESULTS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Men\u2019s singles:<\/strong> Anders Antonsen (Den) bt Yushi Tanaka (Jpn) 16-21, 21-16, 27-25<\/p>\n\n\n\n Men\u2019s doubles:<\/strong> Aaron Tai-Yap Roy King (Mas) bt Lai Po Yu-Tsai Du Cheng (Tpe) 21-19, 21-19<\/p>\n\n\n\n Women\u2019s singles:<\/strong> Mia Blichfeldt (Den) bt Ratchanok Intanon (Tha) 21-17, 21-13<\/p>\n\n\n\n Women\u2019s doubles:<\/strong> Chen Fan Shutian-Luo Xumin (Chn) bt Hsu Yin-Hui-Lin Jhih Yun (Tpe) 21-18, 21-19<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mixed doubles:<\/strong> Jiang Zhenbang-Wei Yaxin (Chn) bt Gao Jiaxuan-Wu Mengying (Chn) 21-18, 21-16<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It was a Danish double at the Arctic Open badminton championships as Mia Blichfeldt and Anders Antonsen claimed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16588,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[75],"class_list":["post-16587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsbeat","tag-badminton"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t