Viktor on his way to becoming a legend, says Denmark coach

World champion Viktor Axelsen of Denmark

Denmark's national badminton team coach Kenneth Jonassen believes his country's star player and reigning world champion Viktor Axelsen has what it takes to be one of the greatest shuttlers in history.
In an exclusive interview with Khaleej Times, Jonassen, who won two gold medals as a player in the team event of the European Championships in 2006 and 2008, also revealed Axelsen's Chinese secrets after the world number one beat China's Shi Yuqi in the semifinals of the Dubai World Superseries Finals on Saturday.
Q. Viktor was in top form today in his 21-12, 21-8 win over Shi Yuqi. He had lost to the same player in the group stage. What changes did you make going into today's semifinal?
Compared to the second group match, this was different. We learned quite a lot from that. He had never played Shi before coming into this tournament. We were trying to learn from what Si was trying to do against Viktor and I felt that Viktor gave in a little bit because he was leading 16-11 in the third and Shi just stole the set.
So in this match we knew what to expect from Shi and it's very difficult for most players to play Viktor in two matches in the same tournament and keep coming up with good solutions. Viktor has this very fierce attacking game.
Viktor played even better today than he did in the last group game. I was pretty confident about this match today.
Q. After having won the World Championship this year, Viktor said his next goal was to win the All England Championships. As a coach what are your expectations?
First of all we will learn from defeats at All England in previous years. We will try to learn from each year and but the other top players will also come better prepared. It's going to be tough but I like the fact he has made it a top priority. It's a very important tournament for him.
Q. Viktor is the third player from Denmark to win the World Championships. Do you believe he can go on to become one of the all-time greats with multiple titles at the World Championships and Olympics?
I do. I think he is already on his way. Not many legendary Danish players won the World Championships and Viktor has already done that. He is only 24. But to do it he has to be steady at the highest level for many, many years. As long as he stays healthy, he stays hungry and motivated, I think he can take his game far.
Q. We have heard that Viktor stayed in China for some years to train as he wanted to keep improving as a player. And that he even learned Mandarin!
No he didn't stay in China for years. That's not true. But yes, he has stayed there on and off to train and he learned their language in Denmark!
It might have opened his mind for something but to say that he developed his game by staying in China for two-three months a year will be overdoing it a bit.
He has worked very hard on his game in Denmark. I think we have a very healthy training system in our country. So many world-class players have emerged from Denmark. You know when Viktor was very young, he trained with legends like Peter Gade. So that helped Viktor.
rituraj@khaleejtimes.com