Most expected it to be Alex Lanier or Toma Jr Popov. But Christo Popov, guided by a sports-nut father, from the ethnically Bulgarian-French family, produced the first champion of badminton’s World Tour Finals.
It was a resounding extension of the French immigrant policy, where sport is encouraged as a means of integration into the community for those making the country their new home. Mostly sporty ones picked football, but the Popov family, starting with the shuttle-crazy dad, picked badminton unconventionally and have devoted decades to building the sport’s popularity from the ground-up, maxing the scientific support that came their way ahead of the Paris Olympics. Brice Leverdez’s shocking upset of Lee Chong Wei had been the last eye-popping headline in French men’s singles, but Christo has opened up entire vistas for French shuttle at age 23 with his title at Hangzhou, beating World No 1 and world champion Shi Yuqi in the finals.
Christo stayed unbeaten throughout the WTF week, and unexpectedly raced ahead of giant killing elder brother, Toma Jr.
But much like Alex Lanier, who’s had a good run last two years, and beyond the wonder of acknowledging that France will pose a second power to contend with from Europe, even ahead of badminton perhaps in coming years, there’s the more enduring battle of styles that could change how badminton looks. Lanier brought physicality to the court; Axelsen has of course leveraged his mighty built and deep understanding of the game to win Olympic titles, but Christo showed he could completely bypass the Asian style.
For all his 6-ft-4 massive smashes and booming attack, Axelsen still engaged opponents at the net with delectable dribbles, tumbles and deceptions that the Europeans club under ‘net spin.’ Christo, playing Anders Antonsen in a crucial pool game, however, took the net completely out of the equation.
Getgoodatbadminton.com, an incisive website that relays badminton content, smartly noted that Christo played only 37 of his 107 exchanges with Antonsen, at the net. Committing to the net or even getting lured into it, makes badminton hyper-focussed as the battlezone of dribbles and counter-dribbles shrinks, and margins of error are miniscule. The highly skilled shuttlers use the net game to dominate opponents, control rallies and take charge. Christo found a roundabout around the top Dane.
It bears repeating that Christo plays very high-quality doubles alongside brother Toma Jr, on the international circuit. And he dipped generously into that repertoire of drives, cross nets and pushes, choosing deep smashes and slices from the back and high lifts and clears to completely keep Antonsen busy at the back court. It was a simple game plan and there’s curiosity if it can be repeated over and over, but playing far blocks that pin opponents behind the mid line, and allowing them no sniff of the net, turned out pretty lucrative for the Frenchman.
“It became a battle of power and speed. And his quick cross nets to end a rally helped. Like doubles,” getgoodatbadminton.com said in a demystification video of Christo. It needed immense upper body speed to continually keep dispersing the shuttle to the back besides fast footwork, but the French are known to literally amp up their games by reconstructing metrics – increasing power, raising speed, accentuating agility with top-notch fitness work.
It’s not that Christo is a dummy on skills, he just is versatile and can tailor his game to get rid of whoever is the opponent on the day, thanks to his years playing doubles. France was ecstatic, but badminton is also watching with interest if this is shuttle’s equivalent of tennis’ baseline slugathons from Roland Garros. If the net is nulled the way he did against Antonsen, then Christo Popov is onto shuttle finding the European counter to Asian stranglehold on this sport.
Carolina Marin and Axelsen proved it can be done, but they blended Asian artistry into their physicality and aggression. Christo laid down the challenge that artificial turf once posed to Asian hockey: Can you play all-out power & speed, a full-press at all times, and render the net near-redundant?
The French ‘Vainquer’ – champion – admitted to L’Equipe newspaper later that this blistering, punishing style took frequent toll. “Normally, when you wake up, you wonder where the pain is going to hit you, where it’s going to hurt. This time it wasn’t the same question at all. It was more like: what doesn’t hurt?” he joked to L’Equipe. “Because you are in pain everywhere.”
Popov is a pioneer. “We’re first ambassadors of the sport in France. Badminton is often overlooked in France or at least not given enough media coverage,” he told L’Equipe. “When I was young I was the only one in class playing badminton. Everyone played football or handball because we knew the stars. France was football world champion in 1998, but playing badminton was a bit strange,” he recalled. The strangest thing just happened a quarter of century later: a Frenchman won the biggest Tour title on the badminton circuit.