They have been out for a year, missing the Olympic Games in Paris. Alexandra Bøje has in the meantime had a temporary partner, but now Mathias Christiansen and Alexandra Bøje are truly back together. In their comeback tournament they won the Macao Open, and here in only their second tournament back they have just defeated the world No. 1 Feng/Huang with the scores 14-21, 21-13, 21-18.

After the match Alexandra Bøje said: “It feels so great to be back, such a cool atmosphere in the hall today with many Danish and French supporters cheering for us.”

Because they had been out for more than a year, they did not have enough points to qualify on their own. But Badminton Denmark chose to select them anyway ahead of other pairs with more points. When asked whether a result like this is the reason why they were chosen, Christiansen said: “Yes, I think so. At least that was what was expressed and what we were told, that we have beaten all of the world’s best pairs before, and the federation believed we could do it again. And we already showed here from the start that we still can, and we are very happy about that.”

Even though the pair are happy to have defeated the top-seeded pair, that does not mean they will automatically go far in the tournament. Bøje said that they had not looked further ahead in the draw and did not even know who their next opponents would be. They will try to take it one match at a time and prepare for tomorrow, when another tough task awaits against the 12th-seeded Cheng/Zhang from China.

With one of the pre-tournament favorites now out, the mixed doubles category is wide open. As Christiansen put it: “There are a lot of really good pairs here, and many pairs who can win the tournament. Now we have beaten one of them, but there are many others who can take this title.”