Danish Cup – Daniel McMillan
Danish Cup, Hvidovre, Denmark. 23rd – 25th August 2019
I was excited to go to the Danish Cup as I have always heard of it as being a very big tournament that all of the best players went to and I was lucky enough to be selected to go.
Friday, Day 1, started off a bit edgy, as I lost my first round of mixed with my first time partner in 2 to a very good Danish pair. This wasn’t the best result going into the tournament, but as the boy was around 6’4”, a year older and they proceeded to the semi-finals, I wouldn’t say it was a bad result.
It also wasn’t the greatest confidence boost going into my singles, especially since I was playing the number 2 in France, Sacha Leveque, who is a year older than me and who has also beaten the number 1 from England before in our age group. However I started off in the 1st set with a really good lead up 11-5 but then having the score brought back to 11-11 was a bit of a fright. So I decided to play the rallies out a little bit longer and won the set 21-16. Although I won the 1st set, I was knackered as the rallies were extremely long and unlike me the French boy was able to keep the rallies going for the whole set and I wasn’t capitalising on as many opportunities and lost the second set 9-21, which was a bit disappointing but I was still happy from the opening set so I didn’t give up. Sacha Leveque had stepped his game up after losing the first set so I lost the third 8-21 but I was proud with my performance having taken a set off him.
In the doubles, we won our first match against a Swedish pair 21-17 18-21 21-17but it was dreadful play as the rallies were all around a maximum of 5 shots. The amount of service mistakes from both teams was amazing and the unforced errors just rose and rose, but we eventually came away with the win and were through to the second day.
I had already exceeded my expectations by getting through to the second day. Our second doubles match we played was winnable but we gifted the attack too much and were beaten by pure power by the 2 older Danes going down 21-16, 21-12.
In the end, I enjoyed my tournament and how I had played. I got to see some fantastic matches by my fellow England players as they contested semi-finals and finals. Hopefully I will get the chance to try again next year.
Results can be found HERE.
