Text by BWF | Badminton Photo
Having spent most of her career predominantly as a singles player, Lauren Lam transitioned fully to women’s doubles this season and the move immediately paid off. Lam and new partner Allison Lee won their third tournament together – the Uganda International Challenge – and followed that up with titles at the Polish Open and the Pan Am Championships.
Riding on quarterfinals at the US Open, Canada Open, and Macau Open, the USA pair shot to world No.21 – a career high for both. Heading to her first BWF World Championships, Lam talks about the decision to switch from singles to doubles, her experience so far, and what it means to qualify for the World Championships.
World Championships Debut
The World Championships is one of the most prestigious tournaments. It’s a tournament that everyone wants to play. So for me, especially being my first time in the World Championships, especially in Paris — it’s a beautiful city — it really means a lot.
I think the important thing was, when I was playing singles and doubles (with Paula Lynn Obanana), I wasn’t enjoying badminton. In singles I wasn’t doing too well. I just wasn’t really enjoying badminton, especially the stress with singles. I wasn’t progressing. And on top of that doubles. Falling short on the Olympics was a huge blow as well. After that I had to travel the world by myself as a singles player — that was very lonely, very stressful. It was very tough, I wasn’t enjoying it.
Embarking on New Partnership
This year, in January, I was doing the Malaysia, India and Indonesia tour, and it was kind of like a realisation that maybe I just wanted to try something different, that maybe a change in my career and hopefully, it’ll be a change for good. Fast forward to now. I’m enjoying badminton again. It’s because I’m loving what I am doing now. I think that’s most important especially for athletes because if you just push without a purpose, that’s just causing more of a burnout. So I think that’s what that’s most important for me.
Playing two events was too tough on my body. Everything is physically demanding. In doubles the management is easier, because there is me and my coach Paula (Obanana), and Allison and her coach. The management is much easier compared to singles, where everything is by yourself. There’s more support.
Switching from Singles to Doubles
What’s crazy is that the 2024 Olympics race, I was in both singles and doubles, so I didn’t fully train for one event. So I was kind of half-half on everything and compared to now, I knew nothing about doubles. There’s definitely some singles instincts because it does take time to change. It’s definitely something we’re working towards.
It’s more of me adjusting because as a singles player transitioning into doubles, it kind of gets complicated. Once you get more experienced you adjust more easily. I’m lucky to have my coach and my partner and our team that we’re able to have those resources to work on that every day.
What Led to the Combination
I don’t know much, but I think her partner was injured at the time. Me playing with Allison was supposed to be a temporary thing actually. It was just a fun thing, because I was playing singles and I didn’t have a partner, and (Allison) was on Tour as well. At the end of the day, we just committed.
Our first serious event was the Pan Am Cup. There wasn’t like a realisation point because there wasn’t any expectations in the beginning because we were a new pair, we were just trying out. So for me I didn’t have any expectations, it was just one tournament at a time. But what led to the momentum was our third tournament, the Uganda International Challenge.
Breaking Through
We won our first International Challenge, our third tournament together. It was a really good confidence booster. And after that, confidence just kind of piled up. I think it just kept adding on. We had a good US Open, Canada Open and Macau Open, we were able to make quarterfinals, it was good progress.
This is my career high-ranking. We only started in this this year. Six months and it’s good that we’re ranked world No.21.
Allison lives in San Francisco, California, I live in Los Angeles. Sometimes I go to her because I’m actually from there. Sometimes when I visit home, I train with her, sometimes she comes to me whether it’s in Southern California or here in Texas.
Playing the top pairs is definitely overwhelming. But for me and Allison, we just want to go out there and just do our best to kind of show who we are. We want to enjoy the match, have fun. For now we’re just coming up, so we kind of want to put everything out there, but it’s definitely overwhelming because we’re playing against the best of the best in the world and like a huge Arena.
It’s really exciting. It’s my first Worlds, it’s in Paris, I love Paris, it’s in the Olympic hall – it’s going to be fun. I have my family going and Allison’s family will be there as well. It’s going to be super important for both of us. We just want to play well and enjoy it.
