Tara Pilven has secured Australia’s first badminton win at the Youth Olympic Games, with an easy straight sets win (21-7 21-3) over unseeded Dragana Volkanosvka of Macedonia.

The girl from Ballarat had a different demeanour on court tonight with her nerves from the first match gone – where she was disappointed with her performance in a straight set loss to Spain’s European Junior Champion.

The smile returned and so did her confidence. 

“I felt much better tonight and played a much better length than the first match,” Pilven said.

With very limited experience playing in massive stadia with air conditioning the experience gained with every minute on court is invaluable for the future.

“I would have preferred that easier match first up to let me find my rhythm,” she shrugged with a wry smile.

In between the two matches Pilven went back to the Village for a plunge pool and slept for two hours. She was not expected to win her first match but all her hard training was geared to putting up a better fight.

Monday’s contest against Airi Mikkela of Finland is set to be a very close contest. Both girls have one win and one loss against the same opponents and with similar scorelines. Neither can progress to the quarter-final direct elimination stage but Pilven is determined to finish on a win and improve her overall standing.

The news was not so good for teammate Boris Ma. The 18-year-old from Melbourne was unable to turn around his earlier loss going down 14-21 5-21. In contrast his Sri Lankan opponent was pumped up and orchestrating the play.

“I was expecting a closer contest tonight but unfortunately Boris just made too many unforced errors,” national coach Stuart Brehaut said.

“In the first set he had the tougher end (drift conditions) so a 21-14 score was encouraging and a good platform for the second set but it didn’t eventuate.”

Overall it has been a hard day for the Australian pair but tomorrow presents new opportunities.

Andrew Reid
AOC