Spanish women’s singles suddenly sky-rocketed to the attention of the badminton world with the emergence of Carolina Marin, the reigning Olympic champion. The ripples of which can be seen in the development of other singles talents in the country, with one such talent being Clara Azurmendi. 

2015 was a defining year for Azurmendi. Despite being still a young junior, and not winning a senior title yet, she played a vital role in Spain’s gold medal performance at the European Mixed Team Junior Championships. Later that year, at only 17, she won the bronze at the Baku 2015 European Games in women's singles. Commenting on this, Azurmendi says. 

- I think this was the best moment in my career until now. Those tournaments in 2015 bring me the best memories. 

Know what you want to achieve 

Since that key year so early in her career, Azurmendi has accumulated five titles, two of which came last year at the Slovenian and Welsh International. She now finds herself as the number two in Spain and 82 in the world. Azurmendi shares her thoughts on not being able to kick on and build upon this form further. 

- I think right now is a difficult moment for all the athletes because we can’t train and do our normal life, but right now health is more important, so we have to stay home and be patient and try to do some workouts at home.

- I think the most important thing is to know what you want to achieve and then just work hard for it, she adds. 

Despite a knee in 2018, where she needed to stop for almost a year, the young Spaniard has been delivering a consistent set of results, but she still strives for more.

- I think I need to be more consistent in my game to be up there, so I am training for that with my coaching staff. 

On her coaching staff now is the new addition of Kim Nielsen, previously a key cog in the Danish national team. Commenting on how this is going, Azurmendi states.

- Yes, we started working with Kim a few months ago, and all the players are very happy with him. He is a very good coach and we are learning new things with him. We started doing some different things than we were used to at practice. Sometimes it is good to do some new things to improve.