Tiffany Ho heads Uniroos badminton team in Taipei

The Australian badminton team has been selected for the 2017 Universiade in Taipei from 19 August to 30 August featuring promising teenager Tiffany Ho who is rising up the world rankings.

 

Once the Games come around in mid-August the 19-year- old could be inside the top 100 in the women’s singles and looking to win another medal wearing the green and gold.

 

Earlier this year she won two silver medals at the Oceania Championships in Nouméa, New Caledonia competing in women’s singles and doubles.

 

In 2016, she became the champion at the Oceania Championships in the women's doubles event partnered with Jennifer Tam, defeating compatriots Gronya Somerville and Melinda Sun.

 

She has competed in the Australian Badminton Open, a Badminton World Federation Super Series event for a few years and was also selected in the Thomas and Uber Cup women's team in Kunshan, China 2016.

 

“At World Uni Games, I am really looking forward for the experience to verse many other international players,” Ho said.

 

“My goal is to take in as much experience I can from the trip so I can apply the knowledge to my game play.

 

“I am ranked 114th, but I would love to break into the top 100 by the end of this year and I would also like to compete in even more international tournaments and perform well.”

 

The nursing student at the University of Technology Sydney has aspirations of competing at the next Olympics in Tokyo and has been well supported with the UTS elite athlete sports scholarship.

 

“UTS has been very understanding of my situation and help me a lot to create a flexible timetable to allow me to compete and study at the same time,” Ho explained.

 

“At the moment, I am only doing three subjects per semester for my course so it gives me a little more time to balance out my training sessions, tournament schedule and study.

 

“It is still a very tough lifestyle, I feel like I'm constantly trying to catch up with study when I miss classes due to competitions.”

 

Prior to the Summer Universiade she will compete for Australian at the Sudirman Cup held on the Gold Coast in May.

 

Team List 

Female:
Sirina Fan	University of Sydney
Tiffany Ho	University of Technology Sydney
Claudia Lam	University of New South Wales
Jennifer Tam	Macquarie University
Male:
Daniel Fan	Curtin University
Athithan Selladurai	Monash University
Eric Vuong	LaTrobe University

 

Four players on the team have previously represented Australia at international events including the World Junior Championships, whilst three others have earnt their first Australian team caps after strong results at recent national and international events.

Tiffany Ho, Jennifer Tam and Eric Vuong will be looking to peak very soon as they form part of the Australian team for the 2017 Sudirman Cup (world mixed team championships) from 21-28 May on the Gold Coast.

Vuong and Tam will also be making their second appearance at a Universiade competition.

Team coach and manager Marianne Loh is confident that the team can improve on their results from 2015 despite the expectation that the competition will be even better than it was in Gwangju, South Korea.

“The badminton competition at the Universiade is expected to be demanding, as Asian nations are likely to field strong badminton teams which include some of the world’s best badminton athletes,” Loh explained.

“All Australian team members are looking forward to putting on their best performances and taking on the challenges.”

The badminton competition at the 2017 Summer Universiade will go for six days including a team and individual competition where Australia will be represented in all five badminton disciplines – women’s singles and doubles, men’s singles and doubles, and mixed doubles.