It’s been two years in the making.

At the CLASH OF CLANS Arctic Open 2023 powered by YONEX on Thursday, Margot Lambert and Anne Tran, who partnered in 2021, became the first French women’s pair to reach a Super 500 quarterfinal by defeating India’s Tanisha Crasto/Ashwini Ponnappa 21-19 21-16.

“It’s really good for French badminton, and women’s doubles in France. I hope it inspires the young players in the country,” said Tran.

“We tried to stay focused until the end because we knew it wasn’t going to be an easy finish.”

Lambert added: “Quite happy (with the result). It’s nice to play on a Friday. We will see tomorrow how it goes.”

Eyeing the Paris 2024 Olympics, Lambert/Tran welcomed the ranking points that will strengthen their current No.13 position.

“It’s still a long road towards the Olympic qualification and it’s going to get tougher, but these are important points,” said Lambert.

Standing in their way and more history today will be second seeds Jongkolphan Kititharakul/Rawinda Prajongjai, who lead the head-to-head between the pairs 2-0.

It was a good day for European badminton as Ondřej Kral and Adam Mendrek became the first players from Czech Republic to qualify for a Super 500 quarterfinal earlier in the morning.

→ Results (Day 3)

→ Order of play (Day 4)

*Reporting in collaboration with Badminton Europe

WHAT OTHERS SAID:

“During the pandemic, I kept active, and continued training. I’m world No.45 now, I want to end the year in the top 32 so I can experience the higher level tournaments more frequently.” – Lei Lan Xi

“I’m now more confident playing the top players. This is my third straight win over him, I hope to keep this momentum going.” – Ng Tze Yong after defeating Chou Tien Chen

“We were too impatient to attack that our coach had to remind us to focus on receiving first. That was probably down to the pressure of being a seeded pair.” – Kie Nakanishi after she and Rin Iwanaga scraped past Linda Efler/Isabel Lohau 27-25 21-17