After a long and distinguished playing career, Hans-kristian Vittinghus took up a role as Denmark’s men’s singles coach last year. One of the heroes of Denmark’s Thomas Cup-winning campaign in 2016, Vittinghus speaks about the upcoming Thomas Cup in Horsens, Denmark’s challenges in men’s singles, France’s rise, and his team’s prospects on home turf.

This is your first big assignment as coach on home soil… what does it mean for you?

I’m really excited about it. Obviously, as a player, Thomas Cup was one of the things I always enjoyed the most, and I don’t think it’s going to be any different. As a coach, I also went to the European Men’s and Women’s Team Championships about a month ago, and got a little taste of what it’s like to be part of these team events as a coach. And I can only imagine that being part of a team on home soil for Thomas Cup, which is has a special place in my heart, it’s just going to be an amazing experience. I remember when we played the Thomas Cup in Aarhus back in 2021. It was an amazing feeling. The support was out of this world. So I’m really hoping to experience some of the same in Horsens this time. And I honestly cannot wait. I’m really excited.

I was expecting you to say that the pressure is going to be intense. You’re in a pretty tough group as well. That doesn’t seem to be weighing you down at the moment.

Well, no, the pressure is not really something I’ve thought much about. I’m mostly just excited about getting there and being part of an event like that. Obviously, I should say that the group is quite tough. We have both Korea and Chinese Taipei and, of course, Sweden. We know that we are in a group where we can risk going out in the group stage, which would not be very nice feeling to do on home soil. But on the other hand, I also feel like it’s a group where we can actually beat all the teams, so we also have a chance of being number one in the group.

I just don’t focus much on the pressure. I focus more on the fact that we are going to play an amazing event. We’re going to do it on home soil. And I know because I tried it once before, so I know for a fact that it is an amazing feeling to step on court. I won’t be stepping on court, but I will still feel the same amount of support as last time.

You’re still relatively new into your coaching career with the national team. How has the experience been?

I really enjoy it. I really enjoy the process of working with the players on a daily basis. I actually enjoy that part more than traveling to tournaments. I’ve travelled enough in my life, so I don’t mind doing it again now, but it’s the daily work with the players — I have seven guys in my in my group here — and they’re all thinking in different ways. They have different strong parts and weaker parts. So you have to be really adaptable.

Working with all of them, you cannot just work in one way with everyone and expect to get the same results. That’s really challenging, because I’ve also been used to doing things my own way, but I cannot just copy that for each of these seven individuals. It’s also a very, very exciting opportunity, and also an opportunity where, because I’m still quite new in this role, it’s an opportunity for me to grow and understand the game in a different way.

Have you done many team events since you took over as men’s singles coach?

The European (Men’s & Women’s Team) Championships was the only team event I’ve done. We didn’t win, but it was good test for us before the Thomas Cup. So it was a good test for me to be there as as a team coach, but also for the guys to be together and get some experience as a team, working together and being there for each other. Being there without Viktor Axelsen was a new situation that we haven’t been used to for many years. So we need to find a good solution, to produce good results without him.

Historically, Denmark have been very strong in the men’s events. Over the last one year, the team has looked vulnerable. Are you worried?

Yes, of course, we know that we are not as strong as we have been for the past 10 years. There’s no way of hiding that. We are in a process of a generational shift in the men’s singles group. No doubt about that. But also, to be honest, it was actually one of the things that made it a little bit easier for me to accept the role as men’s singles coach, because I feel like I go into this role with less pressure. If I went to enter the role and I had Viktor (Axelsen), Anders (Antonsen) and (Rasmus) Gemke as my top three guys in the national team, and I had them every day, the expectation would be that I deliver World Championships and Olympic medals, titles at the Super 1000 and so on.

Right now, I don’t have Viktor and I don’t have Anders on a daily basis. I have Gemke and then a group of young guys. So the expectation is not that I deliver World Championships medals straight away, or Olympic medals. The expectation is that over a few years, I can produce players that will have world class level, so in that way I feel less pressure to perform, and I can grow into the role and find out exactly how to solve this situation. Because obviously the ambition is still to produce men’s singles players who can win medals at the World Championships and Olympics. I just don’t see it for us in the next year, but yeah, hopefully in two, three, four, five years, something like that. Hopefully I’ll be in the role for a long time and being part of solving this generational shift that we are going through.

Denmark has slipped from its position as the top European team. What does that make you feel, especially with France coming up so strong and producing great results, and Denmark’s struggling a bit.

Of course, we would like to still be just number one in Europe. But on the other hand, it’s very positive to see that France has risen to a level where they are actually world class. I would be more concerned if we had lost our spot as number one, if it was because our level was just dropping and dropping. You can argue that maybe our level has dropped a bit, but I would still say that we have players that are world class. We still deliver medals at the World Championships, at the Olympics as well. I still believe that the Danish national team is at a world class level.

Now we just have another European country who are also producing world class players, which is positive for Europe. That being said, we still would like to be the number one for sure. And now we lost to France in the men’s team championships, which was the first time in history that we lost the men men’s event in Europe. Obviously, we don’t like that, and we would like to win back the title next time. It’s also healthy for us to have this kind of pressure and someone pushing us.

We need to do better and to keep up with them. They are still progressing and moving forward, and it’s a challenge that we need to take up. So on one hand, I’m very happy. And on the other hand, of course, it’s also annoying, because obviously, when you’re in the lead, you just want to win as much as possible, right?

The sport is changing all the time. How are you approaching it? Is there a radar at the back of your mind about how men singles is evolving? It it instinctive or do you have to make very conscious, deliberate decisions?

I’m very conscious about that. I try to be very conscious that I don’t put on the players that they need to do what I did in my career. It’s like we need to adapt to the new situation, the new way the game is played. It’s always evolving. And now we also need to think about fact that it might be only played to 15 points from next year. I try to be really open-minded in terms of listening to the feedback from my players. I make sure that I don’t just impose of them what worked back in 2018 when I was at my best, because we are in a very different situation now.

Looking at your squad – Antonsen and Gemke in the first two singles, and Magnus (Johannesen) and Ditlev Jaeger Holm in fourth?

Yes. Those are the four guys that we picked for this team. Holm’s not a young guy, he’s not very experienced. I think he’s 28 now. He’s been dealing with injuries for long periods of his career, but was always a big talent as a younger player. And over the past year, he’s really proven that, that on his day, he can challenge some of the best. He was very close to beating Chou Tien Chen at the Arctic Open last year. He beat Lee Chia Hao in the German Open this year, and had a very close one against Chi Yu Jen also. So I think he’s a good ‘joker’ for us to have.

Magnus is a young guy who’s improving. He was out with a meniscus injury for almost a year, but has now spent the past year getting back, and I think he showed in Orleans a few weeks ago that he’s back at a very high level, beating (Kidambi) Srikanth quite comfortably, and also Wang Zheng Xing from China. So I have confidence in the guys that they have the ability to win, also deciding matches against the top

You won the Thomas Cup for Denmark playing third singles in the final. How crucial is mental strength in that position?

The third singles is not necessarily about who has the best skill set in terms of shots and shot quality. it’s much more a mental game. And all these guys, they have the shots and the movement and stuff to be able to win at this level. So it’s more who can, who can handle the situation in terms of mindset and mentality, and that’s the biggest challenge that you need to address in that situation.

To be honest, I think the level in men’s singles in general is so high that all the guys in the top 100 can beat each other. So I think it’s also important for us to remember that when we go into the Thomas Cup that even though, on paper, we don’t have the strongest lineup, also compared to past editions, we still have the knowhow on how to handle these situations, and all the guys have shown that they can be good players. So in these, these Thomas Cup matches, everything can happen. Which is why I still go into Thomas Cup believing that we have a chance to medal. I know we are not one of the favorites necessarily to medal, but I think we can do it for sure.

What are the conditions like in Horsens? How does it play?

I don’t know. I haven’t been there, so I don’t know. I know it’s a smaller stadium, so I think it can seat around 3000 people, so a little bit smaller than the Denmark Open. I think they’ve already sold quite a lot of the tickets, so hopefully it will be a quite an intense atmosphere. But I haven’t actually been in the hall.

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