Nguyen Hai Dang won the badminton tournament in Iran

In the final match on the evening of February 4, Hai Dang defeated Indian player Sathish Kumar Karunakaran 21-17, 21-18. This result was surprising because Karunakaran is the number one seed, currently ranked 49th, 48 places higher than Hai Dang in the Badminton World Federation (BWF) rankings. However, the Vietnamese player still dominated the match to win after 50 minutes.

At the tournament in Iran, Hai Dang was seeded No. 13. He won the first three rounds easily against Indian player Uma Maheshwar Gopireddy (21-9, 21-10), UAE player Somi Romdhani (who withdrew), and home player Nima Rostampourlagaldani (21-8, 21-6). Dang then eliminated Indian seed No. 11 Meiraba Maisnam (21-17, 17-21, 21-16) in the quarterfinals and Sri Lankan seed No. 8 Viren Nettasinghe (21-15, 21-19) in the semi-finals.

Fajr International Challenge 2024 is part of the BWF World Tour system, so Hai Dang is expected to receive 4,000 points to increase his total score to 19,570. The 1998-born player entered the top 35 on the BWF's Paris 2024 Olympic qualifying table. If he maintains this position until the qualifying round ends on April 28, Dang will have an official ticket to France.

After Fajr International Challenge, Hai Dang will participate in Azerbaijan International Challenge from February 5 to 12.

In the men's singles badminton Olympic qualifying round, each country will have a maximum of two official spots if its players are in the top 16. From 17th place, each country will have one spot. The 38 official spots will include 35 based on the qualifying round order, one spot for the host country and two wild cards selected by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) after the qualifying round.

Including women's singles, women's doubles, men's doubles and mixed doubles, each country will have a maximum of 8 Olympic spots. Each event must have at least 2 athletes from 5 continental confederations, provided the player is in the top 250 BWF.

Nguyen Hai Dang was born in 1998 in Ho Chi Minh City and won the national youth badminton championship three times in 2011, 2017 and 2018. On March 14, 2023, Hai Dang ranked 163rd in the world, two places higher than the legend Nguyen Tien Minh, thereby causing his senior to lose his number one position in Vietnam for the first time in 21 years.

Hai Dang reached his highest ranking - 83 - on August 29, 2023. Currently, he is ranked 97th, the second tennis player in Vietnam, after Le Duc Phat, who is ranked 83rd in the world.