This year, members of the Badminton Club Sertini Doboj were part of the Li-Ning Zagreb Youth Open and U17 tournament, another excellently organized international badminton event in Zagreb. The tournament brought together young players, coaches and badminton enthusiasts from numerous countries in the region and provided our competitors with valuable experience on the international stage.

Our team from Bosnia and Herzegovina this year consisted of Aleksandra, Emilija, David, Vlado, Jovan, Nikola and Nikša, along with coaches Dario Milačak and Brana Srdić. Milan also gave us great support during the tournament, for which we sincerely thank him.

Our competitors performed with fighting spirit, courage and a great desire to show what they had been working on in training. Although they still have a lot of quality and dedicated work ahead of them, we are especially pleased to see the progress of our players from tournament to tournament – ​​they are becoming more confident, more experienced and ready for new challenges.

However, the value of such tournaments is not measured only by results. New acquaintances, joint training, conversations with coaches and socializing with players from different countries are part of the experience that young athletes carry with them much longer than the competition itself.

The stay in Zagreb brought several important new contacts to our club. Our trainers renewed earlier acquaintances, but also made new ones.

We had the pleasure of meeting Edmond Abela, an experienced Maltese coach and member of the Evolve Badminton Academy’s professional team, as well as the father of Malta’s first badminton Olympian, Matthew Abela. We also made contact with Kevin Casaru, the newly elected President of Badminton Malta.

The discussions opened the possibility of future cooperation and the potential departure of our players and coaches to the international badminton camp in Malta in July 2027. Such opportunities represent an important step for us in the exchange of knowledge and experiences, professional development of coaches and further development of our competitors.