Russ Easton 1200

20 August, 2023

Zach Russ and Rory Easton have not had the easiest ride in the build-up to the TotalEnergies BWF World Championships – but the pair are revelling in the opportunity to compete against the very best. 

The duo will make their tournament debut in Copenhagen as things get underway in the Danish capital on 21 August. 

Russ suffered a small ab strain while doubles partner Easton bruised his rib in training, but after a solid week of preparation, the debutants are ready to show their capabilities on the world stage. 

“We’re feeling good now,” Russ said. “We’ve had a complicated and tough few weeks where we’ve both had small injuries which have affected our training in some ways. 

“But this last week we’ve managed to get some good time on court together so we’re feeling good ahead of Copenhagen and things have worked out for the best. 

“It being our first World Championships, it’s going to be a nice experience to share and hopefully something that we can build on in the future. 

“It’s definitely a milestone in our career to play one of these major Championships. 

“We’re very much going to take the experience as it comes and try and put in a good performance and show some of the stuff we’ve been doing in training.” 

The World Championships returns to Copenhagen for the fifth time, nine years on from the last time the city played host in 2014. 

The 23 and 22-year-old will come up against Chinese Taipai’s Lee Jhe-Huei and Yang Po-Hsuan in round one and – should they prevail – would face world No. 1 pairing Fajar Alfian and Muhammad Rian Ardianto in the second round.

Easton and Russ would be looking to take advantage of the Indonesian pairing, who lost in three games to Seo Seung Jae and Kang Min Hyuk at the Australian Open earlier in the month. 

But the England duo, who made the final of the Dutch International in April, insist their debut tournament will rest on building experience and making the most of the platform presented to them.

“For me it’s more about the experience and being able to come up against the top players who will play at these Championships,” Easton said. “I have the view that the points will take care of themselves. 

“If we keep improving and taking on these experiences in a positive way then it will all work out well for us. 

“Overall we’ve been trying to work on making ourselves more dangerous in our good areas, building on our super strengths and trying to nail down tactically what we are trying to do as a partnership and build on our way of playing.

“Every opportunity to play at these tournaments is an opportunity you can grasp that takes us to that next level and we’re just hoping that we take some of these chances and perform. 

“We got to the final of Dutch IS which was very pleasing and we nearly won that one, where we played some good stuff but we’re still searching for something that stands out right now.”

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