▲ Pichamon Opadnippus SNS
[스포티비뉴스=박대현 기자] He chose ‘Taiwan’s Ahn Se-young’ as his role model, not Ahn Se-young (Samsung Life Insurance).
Fans’ attention is focused on the interview content, which is different from a week ago.
Taiwan’s daily newspaper ‘Free Times’ reported on the 31st, “Thailand’s 19-year-old badminton prospect Pichamon Opatnipus has set a new milestone in badminton history by advancing to the finals of the Super 500 Series Indonesia Masters held last week,” and added, “In an official interview, she named Taiwanese women’s singles legend Tai Tzu-ying (32, retired) and Chen Yu-fei (30, China) as her idols.”
▲ Screenshot of Taiwan’s ‘Free Times’ website
Pichamon is evaluated as the next-generation star who will lead the future of Thailand’s women’s singles and the successor to Ratchanok Inthanon (Thailand, ranked 8th in the world).
At this year’s Indonesia Masters, he caused a stir by defeating strong players ranked higher than him one after another. The stock price increased significantly.
She defeated Tomoka Miyazaki (Japan, world No. 9), who was seeded 4th in this tournament, 2-0 in the round of 16, and in the quarterfinals, defeated Nguyen Thuy Linh (Vietnam, world No. 21), the ‘Southeast Asia ambush’, with a 2-1 come-from-behind victory to gain momentum.
At the age of 19 years and 21 days, he reached the finals of the Super 500 level competition, setting a new record as the youngest person in this category.
In the final, he lost 0-2 to Tokyo Olympic champion veteran Chen Yufei (World No. 3) and took second place.
According to the Free Times, Pichamon said that the reason he likes badminton is “because it is a sport that requires you to use your head. The greatest appeal of this sport is that you have to use both your body and your brain.”
He continued, “The idols I want to emulate are Inthanon, Tai Tzu-ying, and Chen Yu-fei. The tournament that impressed me the most last year was the Taiwan Open. I won second place at that time, so it was very memorable.”
Jayu Times reported, “In addition, Pichamon mainly enjoys listening to music during his breaks and mentioned Thai hotpot as his favorite food.”
It is drawing attention whether the role model has changed in less than a week.
Pichamon advanced to the finals by defeating Malaysia’s Letshana Karupateban (ranked 42nd in the world) 2-0 (21-15 21-17) in the semifinals of the Indonesia Masters held in Jakarta, Indonesia on the 24th of last month.
After the game, in an interview with Malaysian media outlet Jarum Badminton, he expressed his feelings about winning, saying, “I’m really excited right now and I’m very proud of myself. I prepared really hard for this tournament, so (going to the finals) is more meaningful.”
Next, the host asked her to talk about her future since she made it to the finals and asked what kind of player she wants to become and who her role model in badminton is. She answered without hesitation, “Tai Tzu-ying and Ahn Se-young,” drawing a lot of attention in Korea. However, in the interview a week later, Ahn Se-young’s name was omitted and attention was drawn to Chen Yu-fei, her country’s badminton sign, and Taiwanese legend.
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