Thai Badminton Star & Thuy Linh: A Rivalry Update

A few days ago, Thùy Linh and Pitchamon had the opportunity to face each other in the quarterfinals of the Indonesia Masters, a Super 500 tournament belonging to the most prestigious group of tournaments at the beginning of the year in the world of high-level badminton.

As a result, Thùy Linh suffered a painful defeat with scores of 21-18, 24-26 and 12-21. In the second set, Thùy Linh repeatedly saved set points, but ultimately succumbed to the youthful energy of Pitchamon, who is 9 years younger than her.

And youth isn’t Pitchamon’s only asset. During the most difficult phases of the match, the young Thai badminton prodigy always benefits from the valuable advice of her two-person coaching team.

Television cameras constantly highlighted the differences between Pitchamon and Thùy Linh, who competed alone.

While Pitchamon behaves like a “princess” on the badminton court, with her coach and assistant taking great care of her, Thùy Linh maintains her usual solitary image.

This has been a well-known story in Vietnamese badminton for a long time, and it is particularly evident in the case of Thuy Linh, Vietnam’s number one player since Tien Minh.

For various reasons, including financial constraints, Thùy Linh often finds herself without a coach to support her when she competes in BWF tournaments.

On the other hand, a very young player, much lower ranked than Thuy Linh in the world rankings, like Pitchamon (36th in the world last week), still benefits from maximum support from the Thai Badminton Federation and her club.

Pitchamon’s name burst onto the scene three years ago when she won the World Junior Championships in 2023, demonstrating her potential to follow in the footsteps of illustrious predecessors like Ratchanok Intanon, Kunlavut Vitidsarn and others.

Since then, the Thai Badminton Federation and the Kasemsak Badminton Academy – where Pitchamon was trained – have always provided maximum support to this angelic-faced girl.

Pitchamon has always benefited from a strong network of sponsors, with the BTS Transportation group as its mainstay. Funding the coaches’ travel to accompany Pitchamon to each tournament has always been easy for them.

And Pitchamon’s potential continues to grow steadily, with a very solid development trajectory.

In 2023, she began competing in Super 100 tournaments and has since won two titles: the Malaysia Masters and the Baoji China Masters. In 2025, Pitchamon also reached the final of the Taipei Open (a Super 300 tournament), before losing to young Japanese prodigy Tomoka Miyazaki.

In this year’s Indonesian edition, Pitchamon took sweet revenge over Tomoka, easily defeating the world number 9 with a score of 21-10, 21-13 in the second round.

After defeating Thuy Linh, Pitchamon beat Malaysia’s Letshanaa to reach the final, where she faced former world number one Chen Yufei (China). Only then was the Thai badminton phenomenon finally unmasked, with a 21-23, 13-21 defeat.

But it doesn’t matter, at 19 years old, Pitchamon is still too young, too full of potential to aim for the Super 500 titles, or even further, the Super 750 or 1000.

Considering Pitchamon’s immense development potential, Vietnamese fans can’t help but feel a touch of sadness seeing Thùy Linh alone and isolated when she participates in major tournaments.

Ten years ago, Thùy Linh was also a “prodigy” who shook up the regional badminton scene thanks to her promising potential.