Text by BWF | Badminton Photo
A year after her memorable campaign at Paris 2024, Juliana Vieira heads to the TotalEnergies BWF World Championships 2025 in the same venue, looking to continue the string of good performances that followed in the wake of the Olympics.
Playing on the biggest stage of her career last year, the Brazilian won her group match over Happy Lo of Hong Kong China, and then went down to Supanida Katethong in a well-fought encounter, 21-16 21-19. The confidence she gained saw her achieve a hat-trick of titles late in the year – winning back to back titles in Peru, El Salvador and Canada.
“It was a dream come true,” says the world No.68, of the Olympics. “I didn’t expect to win because I had a difficult group, but I played very well in both matches and I was very happy to win one of them.
“I think the results that I had in the Olympics helped me to believe in myself and put all my abilities on court, not be afraid to try the trick shots that I do in practice; and these results that I had were also important to improve my ranking and getting in the big tournaments.”
Then, in April this year, the 20-year-old became the first Brazilian women’s singles player to win the Pan Am Championships. In a sensational semifinal, Vieira beat six-time Pan Am champion Michelle Li 18-21 23-21 21-19.
A day later she made history for Brazil, beating Wen Yu Zhang 21-19 15-21 21-8.
“It was very special, I had already played against both of them before, so I was more confident on court, and this helped me to take risks during the game and make good plays and with that win the match,” Vieira says. “Both of them were three games at a high level, so I needed to be 100 per cent focused all of the time.
“It means all the hard work that I’m doing every day is paying off. I had a good feeling that I could make a good result, and I did. It was not easy for sure, but as I said the good results in the Olympics helped me believe that I could do it.”
Paris 2025 will be Vieira’s second World Championships. At the last edition in Copenhagen, she’d won her first round against Singapore’s Insiyrah Khan before falling to Pornpawee Chochuwong. This time she has set her sights on going further.
“In my first participation at the World Championships I won the first round, so now I want to do better than that and make at least the third round,” she says.
“It means a lot to me first of all to qualify for this World Championships because it’s important to keep my points, so I want to play in the best level that I can. It was a difficult preparation, with high and lows, but I did my best in every practice. I have a lot of help from my staff, and my partners as well, so I’m ready to go.”
