Jacobo Fernández (Vigo, 2002) faces his first absolute Spanish badminton Championship from tomorrow to Sunday in Madrid, which he arrives without pressure and weighed down by a knee injury that he has suffered for more than a year. The CB Cíes player spends his first year at the Joaquín Blume High Performance Center and in April he won a silver medal in the Master’s Degree in Valencia, the first round of the national circuit that he played in four months, which makes him harbor hopes of get on the podium at the Nacional, especially in the doubles draw, in which he will compete alongside Rubén García from Granada.
“I’ve had knee pain for almost a year and a half and I keep doing tests because no doctor has been able to find what I have. Right now I am coming from the doctor who would have to do an arthroscopy and they will open me up to find what I have”, explains the athlete from Vigo, who due to these discomforts wants to focus on the competition in pairs: “I am more focused on the doubles draw and, Despite being my first absolute Spanish championship and being a young couple, because my partner is a year younger than me, I think we can be in the fight for medals and even for the title. We don’t have any type of pressure, since he is our first Nacional and we are not, by far, the couple to beat”.
Jacobo played the Valencia tournament with Ernesto Baschwitz from Madrid, but for this championship he brings back Rubén García, his regular partner for years: “We have always played together in lower categories and we managed to get fifth place in the Junior European Championship. Until now, we had only competed together in international tournaments and we have not faced the couples that come to this National, which is a point in our favor”.
The young man from Vigo, however, will also take part in the individual competition. “As far as it goes, I was lucky enough to avoid the most complicated part of the draw because I didn’t get the first seeds, and you can even opt for a medal. But taking into account the conditions in which I arrive, that I am far from 100%, the objective would really be to play a good game rather than achieve a certain result”, he points out.
The best specialists in the country will meet in Madrid and, for Jacobo Fernández, the individual favorites are “Pablo Abián and Enrique Peñalver, who are Top 70 players in the world ranking. They have been starring in the finals for years or, if they meet before, in the semis, the best game of the championships is theirs. They are the rivals to beat. Abián has won eleven consecutive titles in the Spanish Championships and the following candidates are already colleagues from here, from Blume, who are also at a high level, but a little below those two”.
In doubles, he also sees “Pablo Abián with his brother (Javier) and a couple from Blume who were in the recent European Championship as a contender. But this year there are seven or eight couples that are at a very similar level, so it will be a great tournament and the result is more unpredictable, ”he says.
From his first year at Blume, Jacobo Fernández points out that “it is being a transition season to the absolute category and it has not been easy because this transition period has been combined with an injury and, therefore, I have not been able to compete too much neither nationally nor in international tournaments. So, a year that is supposed to be to compete and get points in the ranking to be able to access higher level competitions, I have not been lucky enough to be able to do it and it has been more a time to focus on individual work and recovery ”.
At the High Performance Center he coincides with the brand new European champion Carolina Marín, of whom he highlights that “it is even better than it seems. Seeing her work is surprising and I even think that when she trains she has a much higher level than she can achieve in competition. Seeing how she pushes herself and the hardness of her training, she can perfectly understand how she achieves those results”.
After the Spanish Championship, the player from Vigo wants to focus on “recovering his knee. It will be a few months of break or disconnection to try to return to one hundred percent later”.
His brother Gabriel, another outstanding player at the national level, has also had to stop, although in his case due to a coronary condition. “He has been unemployed for four months and he has another two or three left to start living a normal life. As soon as he can do some sport, he will return to training little by little to recover his level, ”says Jacobo.
