Text by BWF
USA held their nerve in a close group tie against France to take their place in the quarterfinals of the YONEX SUNRISE BWF World Junior Mixed Team Championships 2025.
Not every team has a bunch of supporters in the stands, but USA does. The parents of all 10 members of the team have made the trip to Guwahati, egging them on through all their group assignments, and watching with pride as their team beat Vietnam, Norway, Egypt, and finally France to top Group B.
Both sets were as tight, with Garret Tan seeing his team through in the fifth match of both sets, 45-43 45-43.
“It was nerve-racking,” said women’s singles player Micah Henares Cruz. “We are so proud to win because of how hard we worked for this, and how much pressure our team was under.”
For Cruz, to have the parents travel with them was “special”. While the players of a few other teams too have parents accompanying them, Team USA have something of a tradition with the parents travelling as a group to accompany their kids to tournaments — both domestic and international — functioning almost like a big family.
“We are at their training as well, so when we travel with the kids, we are keen to see them apply their training to the competition,” says former international Benny Lee, father of Arden Quan Lee. “So it means a lot to watch them and support them as much as we can. I go to every single tournament. If we can’t go with our kids, we send our kids with some other family, so that’s how we support each other.”
To travel with their kids for multiple tournaments a year requires time, effort and money, but the parents measure the payoff in terms of the time they get to spend with their kids before they turn fully independent, and in the pride of watching them represent their country.
As Micah Cruz’s mother Michelle says: “In the USA, badminton is not a mainstream sport, so we have to support each other. So if we go to these big tournaments, it’s a matter of pride, and we are so proud of our kids, we have to be there. We have no vacation time; our vacation is all spent coming to tournaments, and we sacrifice blood, sweat, voice, tears… everything to support our team.
“We just want the time to be with our kids. The kids have to go to selection events to come here. We want to share that moment so they know their sacrifice is appreciated.”
For Garret Tan’s mother Victoria, accompanying him on tournaments is a rare opportunity to spend time with him, which happens “a couple of times a year” as he is always away competing or training in Chinese Taipei or Malaysia, where his parents hail from.
Tan himself said it was “nerve-racking” to have his parents watch him. That didn’t stop him, however, from taking his team across the finish line against Vietnam and France.
