Tennis player Nguyen Thuy Linh reaches historic milestone, enters world top 20

According to the latest BWF rankings, Nguyen Thuy Linh has a total of 45,550 points, rising 4 places from 24th to 20th in the world. This is also the highest ranking in the career of the 1997-born player from Phu Tho. This ranking allows the number one Vietnamese female tennis player to participate in almost every tournament around the world.

This achievement was achieved thanks to Nguyen Thuy Linh's good performance in October. Nguyen Thuy Linh entered the quarterfinals of the Finland Open and the round of 16 of the Denmark Open. Thanks to that, the 1997-born player earned an additional 9,360 bonus points for a total of 45,550 points, jumping from 26th to 20th on the Badminton World Federation (BWF) rankings. Since the beginning of 2023, Nguyen Thuy Linh has advanced 31 places, from 51st.

This is the first time Nguyen Thuy Linh has entered the world top 20. She is also the first Vietnamese female tennis player to do this, the previous best achievement belonged to senior Vu Thi Trang - 34th, in June 2017. Meanwhile, male badminton legend Nguyen Tien Minh is still the only Vietnamese tennis player to enter the world top 10, with the best position being 5th in September 2013.

Although she has entered the world's top 20, Nguyen Thuy Linh is not sure to have a ticket to the Paris Olympics taking place next summer.

According to the regulations for the women's singles event of the 2024 Paris Olympics, the official list of participants for the Olympics will be finalized in April 2024. Nguyen Thuy Linh is currently ranked 15th among the women's singles players at the Olympics.

However, if she does not compete from now until April next year, Nguyen Thuy Linh will lose her ranking and may be excluded from the list of athletes eligible to compete in the Olympics. Therefore, she needs to compete to at least maintain her current ranking.

Nguyen Thuy Linh's goal is to finish 2023 in the world's top 20 and qualify for the 2024 Olympics. The race for the 2024 Olympic badminton spots is called the "road to Paris," which counts points for players participating in tournaments in this system from May 1, 2023, and ends on April 28, 2024.

Previously, at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Vietnam had 2 representatives participating, Nguyen Tien Minh in men's singles and Nguyen Thuy Linh in women's singles. Now, Nguyen Tien Minh has not competed internationally and the only hope for Vietnamese badminton will be Nguyen Thuy Linh./.

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