Viktor Axelsen talks to BWF about what it means to have the TotalEnergies BWF Thomas & Uber Cup Finals 2020 at home, the strength of the Danish team, and how he will approach the ‘once in a lifetime’ event.

It’s finally here — the Thomas Cup, on your home soil. What are your thoughts ahead of the start of your team’s campaign?

Well, the Thomas Cup is always special — you’re part of a team, you seldom have this team feeling when you are an individual badminton player, so it’s nice and I’m here to do well for Denmark for the guys and we’re all in this together and I’m looking forward to it.

What’s striking about this Danish team is its overall strength. Do you feel you have all bases covered, in a sense?

I feel like we have a pretty good team but we don’t want to think too much about it. I know that there was a lot of talk even before I was part of the team that Denmark has a really strong team, but I think the most important thing to remember that in order to have a good result is that everybody individually is doing their best on court. Every person is different so you have to give space to everyone, you have to respect that not everyone is the same, and if you can do that in a team, then I think you’re really strong. We respect  that there are differences, and we respect the strength of everyone, and that’s really important.

You must have played in this arena. What are the conditions like?

It’s nice. Usual Danish, you can say. Rather slow conditions, not too much drift, not too much airconditioning. I think we’ll see some pretty amazing badminton.

Personally, what does it mean for you to have the Thomas Cup at home?

Well, it feels amazing, you know. It’s a big dream coming true, playing Thomas Cup on Danish soil. We gonna enjoy it, and hopefully we’ll see many people coming to watch. It’s history, and I don’t think in my active career that I’m going to play Thomas Cup on Danish ground again. So I’m going to enjoy it.

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