Chesterfield's Jack Shephard won a silver medal and a bronze medal at the recent para-badminton World Championships in Tokyo.
Shephard narrowly missed out on gold following a 22-20 13-21 22-20 defeat in the men's SH6 singles final to Hong Kong's Chu Man Kai. His second medal arrived in the SH6 mixed doubles event when he won bronze alongside fellow English player Rachel Choong.
Jack was aiming for a third straight World Championships singles gold medal but just missed out after an epic battle with a very familiar opponent. Despite the agonising defeat following such a tight encounter, Shephard was very satisfied with his overall performances at the major event in Japan:
"I'm really pleased with my performances. It was a great tournament out there. I was a double world singles champion coming into this tournament and I wanted to go out to Tokyo and become a triple world champion. Unfortunately, I lost the singles final by two points in the final game. It was really, really close and it was a great final. It was some of the best badminton I've ever played. So yeah, I'm really happy with my overall performance. It's a lot to take forward into next year and for the 2024 Paralympics." "The singles final was really exciting. It was really good for the high quality of play to take place at a final. It was a classic match - we both played really well and put on a good showcase out there for para-badminton. I'm very happy with the performance in general."
It's certainly not the first time that Shephard and Kai have had a highly entertaining match. Shephard beat Kai in the group stage at last year's Paralympics in a similarly epic tussle. Jack agreed that they both bring out the best in each other:
"Yeah, he's a rival opponent. One of the top players in the SH6 category. We always have good matches when we play against each other and I always look forward to playing against him. I get to showcase some of my best badminton. On most occasions, I've beaten him but unfortunately this time around, it didn't happen."
The Chesterfield sports star gave a little insight into how he deals mentally with the nerves of competing in a major tournament final:
"There's always a little bit of nerves going into a major final; whether that be a Paralympics final, a World Championships final or an open tournament final. There will always be nerves there. The key to get through it is my routine and sticking to what I know. I always say to myself, I've been here before in this situation. I use my experiences from before to move forwards and that's all you can do. You've just got to remember how you got there and once you start, the nerves will relax and you'll start to settle into the game and start playing your best badminton."
Shephard was also full of praise for the organisation of the Tokyo World Championships and the crowd atmosphere of every match during the major tournament:
"The atmosphere was really good. The Japanese federation were really good at getting their country to support the event. They always run some of the best events in the sport. A lot of locals came to watch and a lot of local school children and they were cheering everyone on. Players who were not playing at the time would stay behind and cheer on their teammates. To get to play at the previous Paralympics venue again was awesome."
2023 promises to be a busy and important year for the sport of para-badminton and for Shephard personally:
"So we've just recently received the calendar for next year. There's lots of tournaments to play as it will be the qualification period for the Paris 2024 Paralympics. It's still up in the air currently as to which tournaments I will enter next year as we work out what the qualification process entails. It'll be an exciting year. Lots of tournaments to play. There will be a bit of pressure to try and qualify for the Paris Games. 2023 will be all about qualification for those Games."
Despite plenty of success at World and European level, Shephard has still never won a Paralympics medal of any kind. There's no question as to what Jack's number one target is for the future:
"The Paralympics is the big one at the end of the road. My dream is to win a gold medal there. Tokyo 2020 didn't quite go to plan for me as I exited at the group stages. That was quite a setback; but setbacks always lead to positives and they drive you on for the future...I've just got to work hard and get through qualifying next year to book my spot on the plane. Once that's done, we can work on winning that gold medal in Paris."
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