10 April, 2023
Krysten Coombs leads the English charge at the Brazil Para Badminton International in Sao Paulo this week.
Following two events in Spain earlier this year, Paralympic bronze medallist Coombs is one of four English players back in action, joined by David Follett, Sean O’Sullivan and William Smith.
Jack Shephard and Rachel Choong have chosen not to travel and will instead focus on an intense training block ahead of events in Thailand and Bahrain, while Isaak Dalglish and Dan Bethell – who won back-to-back golds in Vitoria and Toledo – are also staying back in England.
Coombs started his season with an SH6 singles bronze medal in Vitoria, but was beaten by Shephard at the last eight stage in Toledo.
And after a strong start to the season across the board for the Para-Badminton programme, he is determined to deliver some strong results this week.
“Spain was a good event – we made good headway over the winter break before seeing everyone,” said head coach Rich Morris.
Disappointed with the result today on court. But overall it’s been a great week for me with a well deserved bronze medal! Bring on Spain level 1 in four days! #backstronger
📸 (Photo Credit) @badmintonphoto & Craig Burgess #teamyc #teamyonex #ycsports #yonexbadminton #yonex pic.twitter.com/4dYAnoPnA0
— Krysten Coombs (@krysten_coombs) February 25, 2023
“We made some good moves and getting Danny back on court and him returning back from injury with a double gold was quite impressive from him. Overall, it was quite a solid start to the qualification period.
“Krysten learnt a lot from Spain, and we learnt a lot from Spain. We brought that back to develop a few different styles and a few different options. We’ve been working on those, and he feels like he’s got his head round what he did do or what he didn’t do right in Spain.
“He’s looking to put it right and he’s excited, and I’m excited. All the best players are there. It might be the biggest para-badminton tournament to date – I think there might be 337 entries which is an enormous draw.
“All the best are there minus one or two. It’s basically a glorified World Championships, so I think he’s looking forward to it.”
Elsewhere, Follet will compete in WH1 and WH2 disciplines this week, while Smith competes in the SL3 classification and O’Sullivan in SU5 events.
Action in Sao Paulo begins on Monday, with matches taking place across the week.
