Half the Court: When Vietnamese Women's Badminton Plays Itself Again

Monday morning, the Cảnh Hùng badminton hall in Bình Dương remains locked as usual. Outside, motorbikes stream toward the industrial zones. Inside, there is no sound of shuttlecocks hitting the floor, no sound of shoes grinding on wooden floors. They say the season hasn't started yet, but in truth, no one remembers what that season is. I stand outside the training hall for fifteen minutes, listening to the wind passing through the roadside trees. Three weeks ago, I stood here too, but that time I held a dusty printed draft — an article about the Vietnamese women's badminton team participating in an international tournament that not a single major newspaper bothered to cover. The newspaper I sent the draft to finally replied: "The topic is not current enough." Those five words burned into my mind like a faint scar. But that wasn't the first time. In 2026, when I left a newspaper after twelve years of writing to establish "Nửa Sân Cỏ" (Half the Court) — the first digital sports platform in Bình Dương specializing in women's football, my former colleagues looked at me as if I were insane. "Women's badminton? Women's football? Who's going to watch that?" The question echoed like a whistle starting a match, yet the court remained empty. That August, the Vietnamese women's football team won the gold medal at the 2026 SEA Games in Kuala Lumpur, defeating Thailand 2-1 in the final. Huỳnh Như scored in the 62nd minute. My first video essay about that journey reached 200,000 views in 72 hours. The nascent fanpage suddenly had 50,000 followers after just four months. Back then, I thought I had found my own half-court. But the truth was far harsher. In June 2026, amid the Russia World Cup fever, I stayed in Bình Dương to produce a seven-part series "Một Nửa Thế Giới" (Half the World). My investigation revealed: Vietnamese television broadcast 4,200 hours of men's football in 2026, but allocated only 12 minutes to women's football — a 21,000-fold disparity. That figure made headlines across forums, but it also revealed a truth: even with statistics, even with evidence, most of the media system still turned its back. Now, returning to the present. The Cảnh Hùng training hall remains closed. On social media, videos of Vietnamese women's badminton training are still posted, but the view counts can be counted on one hand. Meanwhile, men's badminton tournaments are continuously updated, with tactical analysis and commentary on every smash. They call that "current news." As for us who write about women's badminton, we are placed in a dark corner where no one bothers to turn on the lights. The 2026 pandemic froze everything. Tournaments were indefinitely postponed. "Nửa Sân Cỏ"'s revenue dropped from 40 million to just 8 million VND per month. Eighty percent of sponsors withdrew within three months. I locked myself away for three weeks, didn't reply to messages, only rewatched recordings of the women's team from 2026-2026 as a ritual of remembrance. Only two closest confidants — a former athlete and a senior editor — recognized my desperation and pulled me back to the keyboard. They said: "If you leave, who will write for them?" That question still haunts me to this day. In July 2026, I flew to Tokyo to follow the Vietnamese women's football team at their first Olympic Games. They lost all three group stage matches: 0-2 to New Zealand, 0-3 to the USA, 0-3 to Sweden. Many called it a "disaster." But for me, the most glorious moment was goalkeeper Trần Thị Kim Thanh's 12 saves against the American team at Miyagi Stadium — a performance that made international commentators exclaim "a wonder." My profile piece about her reached 500,000 views in three days, helping "Nửa Sân Cỏ" double its paid members and pull back from the brink of bankruptcy. But that was an exception, not the rule. Returning to today's reality: I stand outside the Cảnh Hùng badminton hall, quiet as a church no one visits. I realize the problem isn't the girls' competitive ability on the court. The problem lies in how we — the media, the viewers, the decision-makers — look at them. The court doesn't discriminate by gender. Only the gaze discriminates between players. Back home, I open my computer and start writing. Not to complain, not to denounce. But to document. So that those who want to understand Vietnamese women's badminton have a place to read, to reflect, to question. They call it leaving, I call it finding my own half-court. And on that court, despite the empty stands, the lack of sponsorship, the absence of any name recognition, the girls still step onto the court every morning. Racket in hand. Shuttlecock on the net. Spirit unmoved. That's what I've learned after fifteen years accompanying Vietnamese women's sports: no one can be saved alone, but everyone can start with themselves. This article has no scoreline. No match commentary. No significant statistics. But it carries one truth I've witnessed with my own eyes: women in Vietnamese sports aren't lacking talent. They only lack one thing — fair treatment from society. And if someone asks whether I'll keep writing, my answer is: until that half-court is full of spectators, I will continue to write.