Viktor Axelsen struck the final blow and stood still, a second world title secured. On 28 August 2022, at the BWF World Championships in Tokyo, the Dane beat Kunlavut Vitidsarn of Thailand 21-5, 21-16 to reclaim the crown he first won in 2017.
The opening game was a rout.
Axelsen was expected to prevail over Kunlavut Vitidsarn, and he did, but he was required to step up a level in the second game.
He controlled the court and read the shuttle early, and the young Thai found no foothold. Five points were all Vitidsarn could gather before the interval turned into a chasm.
The second game asked a harder question.
Vitidsarn, having been blown away in the opening game, exerted greater control in the second, mixing his shots and keeping Axelsen on edge. The phase didn't last, for Axelsen pounced on the half-chances, and some astonishing defensive returns had Vitidsarn shaking his head in disbelief.
Axelsen located the turning point himself.
"Kunlavut came on really strong in the second game with a good game plan. But I turned the table around a little bit after the 11-point interval,"
he said.
Conditions played their part, and Axelsen read them.
"I came out really strongly. I controlled the court really well. I controlled the drift really well. It was slower today than yesterday on the side I started on and I think that came as a surprise to both of us,"
he told reporters after the match. From there the momentum swung back, and he closed the contest out without alarm.
A season without equal
The title belonged to a run that had grown difficult to measure.
The Dane had just picked up his second world title at the TotalEnergies BWF World Championships 2022, taking his unbeaten victory streak to 37, and adding to his phenomenal recent successes.
It was, by his own count, a sixth title of the year.
With his win on Sunday, Axelsen now simultaneously holds the Olympic, World Championships, BWF World Tour Finals, and the last three Super 1000 titles.
Set against his own history, the win marked a return rather than a discovery. Axelsen had become World Champion in 2017 in Glasgow, beating Lin Dan in the final to fulfil a boyhood dream. The years between brought the 2020 All England Open and, in 2021, Olympic gold in the same city, when he became the first European men's singles Olympic champion since 1996. Tokyo had already given him one crown. It now gave him a second.
Vitidsarn would go on to trouble him again, though the ledger stayed with Axelsen; at Paris 2024 the Dane beat the same opponent to defend his Olympic title. That lay ahead. On this night the pressure was his to carry, and he carried it.
"Obviously, I was also the favourite and there was a lot of pressure on me. But I managed to perform under this pressure, and I'm really proud of myself,"
he said.
Five years after the first, the second world title read less like a surprise and more like a sentence completed.
