India Open Super 750: Ratchanok Intanon still going strong, playing for mother’s dreams, money and the love of badminton

At 30, Thai shuttler – part of a golden generation in women's singles – is still going strong, making the semifinals against An Se-Young

In her Instagram tribute to mother Kamphan Suwannasara, who passed away in August 2021, Thailand’s superstar shuttler Ratchanok Intanon had written: ‘I won’t say goodbye to you, Mom. I may not want to say that in fact, I can’t handle it.’

In a post in December 2025, after winning gold at the South-East Asian Games, she shared an image that showed it is a sentiment she still carries. It had a screenshot of her phone screen where she is seen “chatting” with her mother, sharing photos and messages as if she were still around her.

While most messages are in Thai, on Suwannasara’s birthday, Intanon sent her a note: ‘It’s been long time I could not see you, but always thinking about you. I will do my best to achieve what we had talked before you goes (sic). Please support me mom!’

“At every level, I feel like she always supports me still,” Intanon said after her quarterfinal win at the India Open Super 750 on Friday. “I want to fulfill the dreams I promised to her – like I want to get some medal at the Asian Games or Olympics – when we were still together. My character is from her, like never giving up easily and being a kind person. Every day we face a lot of tough situations, but we have to be happy and we make people happy around us. All that I learned from her.”

Is she still playing because she thinks her mother would want her to?

“I think mother and also money,” Intanon bursts out laughing. “I still enjoy playing. I love badminton. I know that my fitness is also quite okay. Like now, even with age catching up, I know that I still can (achieve success) and I have to believe in myself.”

Prodigy still going strong

For Intanon, success came early; a three-time World Junior Championships gold medallist, she became the youngest senior World Champion in 2013, topping the podium when she was 18. While three visits to the Olympic Games didn’t bring a medal, Intanon is widely regarded as one of the best players in the game, part of a golden generation of women’s singles. While a few of them have retired, Intanon – World No.8 and a semifinalist now at the year’s first Super 750 event in India – is still going strong, as she has shown in her clinical run in Delhi with three straight-game wins.

“It’s really good that when you talk about playing a decade ago with the same set of players, and we are still competing,” PV Sindhu – an integral part of that era – said when asked about her good friend Intanon’s success in 2025 when she qualified for the BWF World Tour Finals as one of the top eight shuttlers in the calendar year. “It definitely motivates you. ‘They are playing well, why not me?’ It’s good to have friends and competitors on the same circuit.”

An Asian Games medal is a target for the Thai in 2026, but she insists that the biggest objective is to stay fit. In the here and now, on Saturday in New Delhi, Intanon will be up against the toughest opponent there is in the world right now: Korea’s An Se-Young.

The 30-year-old, who concedes An is at another level, said: “I have to be at my best first because I don’t want to think like I’m lower than her and cannot win.” And asked what it takes for a group of 30-plus women to push the younger crop, she adds with another trademark smile: “We have to show the young players that we are still here, and we don’t want you to win against us easily.”