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Gronya Somerville

Gronya Somerville

Age

28

Place of Birth

Carlton

Hometown

Melbourne

Junior Club

Badminton Academy of Victoria

Senior Club

Play Badminton

Olympic History

Tokyo 2020

High School

Maribyrnong College

Career Events

Badminton Mixed Doubles

Badminton Womens Doubles

 

Gronya's Story

Fast Facts

Sport: Badminton
Event: Women's doubles
Olympic History: Tokyo 2020
Highlights: Six-time doubles champion at the Oceania Championships
Year Born: 1995
State Born: VIC

About Gronya

Melbourne native Gronya Somerville never planned to become a professional badminton player, getting into the sport by chance through a national talent identification program in school. She has become one of Australia's most accomplished badminton athletes.

She first became a member of the Australian Badminton Team in 2011 and started competing professionally in 2014.

Gronya has paired up with Setyana Mapasa in the women's doubles since 2015. The Aussie duo have climbed the Badminton World Federation (BWF) rankings to be as high as the 8th best women's doubles pairing in the world. They won their first title together at the Waikato International in New Zealand in 2015, taking out the final in just 22 minutes.

Together Gronya and Setyana became Oceania women's doubles champions in 2017, after Gronya had previously won the doubles title at the same event in 2014 and 2015 with partners Jacqueline Guan and Leanne Choo respectively. Gronya and Setyana credited much of their success on tour to their playing style consisting of a left and right-hand pairing, which is harder for opponents to read when competing.

Gronya was just 19 years old when she was selected to her first Commonwealth Games team for Glasgow 2014. She represented Australia in the mixed doubles, women's doubles and team events - producing a best result of a third-round appearance alongside Raymond Tam in the mixed doubles, where they were defeated by a Singaporean pair.

Gronya and Setyana represented Australia at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games women's doubles event, making it through to the semi-finals where they were defeated by England. They played the bronze medal match and missed out on the podium, losing to Reddy and Ponnappa of India 2-0.

She also holds a BWF World Tour title, two BWF Grand Prix titles and seven BWF International Challenge titles.

While competing at a tournament as a 16 year old, it was revealed Gronya was a descendant of Kang Youwei, a reformer of the Qing Dynasty. Her ancestral links gained her an army of supporters overnight, as she was in China at the time, where badminton is one of their most popular sports.

Living and training primarily in Melbourne during the pandemic years in 2020-21 proved to be a challenge, however, her dedication to the sport of badminton and ambition for the Olympic podium allowed her to push onwards and to make her Olympic debut at Tokyo 2020 (in 2021).

She competed in the women's doubles alongside Setyana, narrowly missing out on advancing to the knockout stages of the Games. They enjoyed a 2-1 victory over Demark, but defeats against China and South Korea ended their campaign.

Gronya also competed in the mixed doubles discipline alongside Simon Leung. The pair got past Danish duo Fruergaard and Thygesen 2-1, but loses against China and South Korea meant they would not advance from the group stage.

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