Hans-Kristian VITTINGHUS

Hans-Kristian Solberg Vittinghus is a right-handed Danish Badminton player. He has already played 495 matches and won 392 out of them with a positive balance of 129.

Background

Badminton was an obvious choice for the young Vittinghus as his two older sisters were also trying out their hands on the game. He began playing at a tender age of 5 years in 1991 for his hometown Solrød Strand. He stayed with this club until the age of 18 and won many nation titles and tournaments. For his club, he won U-13 men’s singles’ national title and fetched two gold medals at U-17 National Championship in men’s singles and doubles. In 2004, he moved to Herlev BC and there he won U-19 men’s singles national title.

Debut

Summer of 2005 proved to be vital for his early career when he made his debut as the senior player for his national side at All England 2005. In November 2016, he managed to clinch his first ever European title by defeating then World No. 1 Muhammad Roslin Hashim in the finals of the Norwegian Open.

Rise to Glory

For his exceptional performances at this young age, he was presented with the Poul-Erik Høyer Trophy 2004. After winning his first international title in 2006, Vittinghus continued with his consistent performances. It was all fruitful when he ended up winning Turkiye International Open in September 2007. He went on to clinch the Norwegian Open title twice in 2009 and 2010, Dutch international in 2008, Spanish Open in 2009 and Irish International in 2010. This made him the new star boy of the Danish hockey.

High Points

With his impressive performances at the end of the previous decade, he was selected to represent Belgium at the 2012 London Olympics. Though, he was not able to perform effectively there. He was part of the first ever Danish to win Thomas Cup in 2016 at Kunshan. The most memorable moment of the tournament was, no doubt, the match point clinched by him. In the same year, he gained his first ever Super Series victory at the Australian Open.

Low Points

His knee injury has made him struggle a lot in his career. He had to opt out of the Bitburger Open in October 2007 after the third round due to the excessive swelling in his knee. On returning to Denmark, his doctors and physiotherapist found out that he had PVNS tumor. He made his comeback at sometime in spring of 2008.

Despite his magical performance at the Thomas Cup, to everyone's surprise, he missed out the Rio Olympics 2016 with Danish coach favouring Victor Axelsen and Jan Ø Jørgensen instead of him.

Currently he is the 25th seeded player in the World Rankings issued by Badminton World Federation (BWF). As he mentioned in one of his recent interview, he is satisfied with his game and the rankings do not matter to him until his game is progressing.