HISTORY, RANKINGS, AND soon the score, were against Scott Evans in Rio, but the Dubliner battled back to claim Ireland’s first ever win in men’s badminton at the Olympic Games.
The Copenhagen based 28-year-old came from a set down to beat Germany’s Marc Zwiebler 9-21, 21-17, 21-7.
The result is a revenge of sorts as Zwiebler was Evans’ first Olympic opponent when he beat the Dundrum native at Beijing 2008. In London, Evans went up against number one seed Lin Dan who went on to win a second straight gold.
Hotline Rings: Rio 2016 / SoundCloud
Today was different though, and after the first set went against him, Evans’ dug deep and forced momentum to flow his way with aggressive net play to build an early lead in the second set, a lead he refused to let slip.
Zwiebler threatened to bounce back and took a 5 – 1 lead after a series of entertaining rallies to open the third. Evans dominated from there on in, winning 20 of the following 22 points and celebrated victory by tearing off his shirt and fist-pumping to the crowd.
The crowd tomorrow will surely not be as receptive. A win over Brazil’s Ygor Coelho de Oliveira will see him through to the last 16.
