Nhat Nguyen does not specify exactly when or where it happened, except to say he was alone and definitely in a dark place. A breakdown moment of sorts, talking it over and over inside his head, all confidence in himself and his game somehow completely shot.
“Looking in the mirror, room pitch dark black,” he says solemnly, “and you’re just thinking, how do I actually improve? How do I actually get better? How can I use this trip or this journey, how can I use this tournament to improve?’”
It’s true that in any racket sport like badminton, it can be as lonely at the top as it is the bottom, such is the inordinate amount of time spent playing mind games with yourself. Winning or losing, for better or for worse, the trick is to not let the voices inside your head take over.
For Nguyen, the problem was twofold. Firstly, after a badminton career that had followed a brilliantly upward trajectory since starting out as a six-year-old, shortly after moving to Ireland from Vietnam, he suddenly couldn’t win a match of any significance. All he’d ever known was near continuous improvement or one big breakthrough after the other.
Like at age 15, when he won his first Irish senior title, and that same year, 2016, was the first Irish player crowned European Under-17 Champion. Or when qualifying for the Tokyo Olympics at age 19, only the fourth Irish player to reach that pinnacle of the sport, after winning matches all over the world in the year-long grind to secure enough ranking points.
Secondly, this complete loss of all winning form was also happening just as the year-long Paris Olympic qualification was starting, in April 2023, and no one expected to earn that plane ticket to his second Games this July more than Nguyen did.
“Probably the end of 2022, it probably started then,” he says. “As an athlete, you can sense yourself ... I was nowhere near my expectations.
“I lost a lot of confidence within myself for sure. I lost the self-belief, the drive, the motivation. When I was younger, the motivation to go up to training, that was easy. But this was very difficult, it was quite strange. I couldn’t really pinpoint what it was. but I just wasn’t myself.
“To even try to stay motivated, that’s tough, that’s a grind. And that’s why (I was) hitting such a low, because for six months I was just losing, losing, losing. Trying my hardest and still losing, losing, losing ... So it was very different and strange when things weren’t going the way I expected.”
Something had to change, and change drastically. Along with his coach Iskandar Zulkarnain Zainuddin, the former Malaysian player now part of the Badminton Ireland team, he took his game completely apartand then started over, as if taking up that badminton racket for the very first time.
“It was a change of absolutely everything,” he says. “Everything you could actually imagine. My technique, my fundamentals, like how to serve even, all these little things, how to move correctly, how to be more efficient.
“And mentally, really trying to build on each session. Not doing one session really good and then completely forgetting about it, and then literally starting over again in the next one.
“It was really tough time. I had a lot of doubts if I was even still wanting to play, that type of thing. Because you’re starting from zero again. You see the mountain that you have to climb again, and it’s tough. Without all the support that my parents actually give me, and my coach, it would have been really, really a lot tougher.”
He can trace the turning point to the Irish Open Championships, in Dublin last November, when he won back the tournament title outright. After that, he promptly moved back up the world-ranking, qualifying 19th of the top 41 global players invited to Paris, joining Rachael Darragh in the women’s singles (her first Olympics).
Back in 2017, Nguyen was among 13 recipients of Olympic scholarship funding, a then 17-year-old Leaving Cert student at St David’s Artane. Tellingly, 10 of those made it to Tokyo, and eight are set to go again in Paris.
“Yeah, that was in November 2017,” he explains. Nguyen recalled at the time how his father Lai had first moved to Ireland, from a small country village two hours outside Hanoi, along with his older sister Thammy. About a year later, Nhat and his mother Thuy joined them, living for their first two years in Belturbet in Cavan, before settling in Clarehall in north county Dublin, where his parents run a popular takeaway restaurant.
Lai Nguyen was decent club badminton player in Vietnam and introduced his son to the sport as a way of integration. Nhat was hooked from the moment he first felt the magnetic swish of the racket.
He makes repeated reference to the closeness and support of his family, Thammy also making some Irish sporting history when winning a first senior medal, a bronze, at the 2023 European Weightlifting Championships. That also put her in line for potential Olympic qualification, although in the end that wasn’t to be realised.
[ Thammy Nguyen named Irish Times/Sport Ireland Sportswoman of the MonthOpens in new window ]
His Paris qualification was decided from the 10 best results, over the 12-month period, and effectively starting from scratch again, there was no knowing how long it would take to get back into some winning form.
“That took a while, like you’re starting from zero again halfway through an Olympic qualification. Personally, it came from me. Because I was tweaking everything small before, and it didn’t work. I felt like I was going nowhere. I felt stuck. You’re hitting a plateau type of thing. And yeah a lot of difficult conversations needed to be had with my coaches, with my family.
“Some days I did not want to go at all, but I’m really proud of myself that I came through that stage. I’ve also been working with a sport psychologist since 2019. It is helpful, but I realise the only person that could really, really help me is myself.”
Because before I was maybe . . . I was definitely way too obsessive with badminton.
Nguyen makes for engaging company, talking with a calm wisdom about his sport and life that seems beyond his 23 years.
“I definitely believe that turned into a negative,” he says of his younger obsession with badminton. “Once you’ve given so much to the sport, and you’re just not getting the result. Or not getting what you feel you deserve, that type of thing. And I definitely learned how to wind down, how to take my mind off badminton, so taking it step by step and trying to enjoy each moment at a time, that type of thing.
“And that really helped me to grow as a person, not just really thinking about myself, even though sport is very selfish. Because before I was maybe ... I was definitely way too obsessive with badminton.
“Now I think I know when I’m going too far and when to take a step back. For me, I’m very much a routine guy. I think meditation has helped me quite a lot with that, just to slow things down.
“And I’m getting to do what I really love and travelling the world, competing against the best. I didn’t know why I was just feeling so down or just not myself so. So yeah, being grateful and being appreciative of the journey and the process was the key of maturing as a person or as an athlete.”
He doesn’t deny badminton is and always will be a lonely sport at times, only now he’s a lot more comfortable with being in that space.
“For sure, it’s lonely. It’s lonely being halfway across the world, losing a first round, terrible performance, sitting in a hotel by yourself. So that’s when I had to take a step back and re-evaluate and improve on and off the court. But I’ve come to quite enjoy being alone, and by myself, because I can really think and be clear about things, no distractions and just being totally honest with myself.”
