Badminton World Championships: 64-year-old teams up with son to win a match

Age is just a number and nobody better than Israel's Svetlana Zilberman can agree to this as the 64-year-old has displayed just that at the ongoing BWF Badminton World Championships 2022 in Tokyo, where she recorded her first win, with her son, Misha Zilberman in the Mixed Doubles first round.

Becoming the oldest player in the history of the Badminton World Championships to win a match, at 64, Svetlana and Misha, a mother-son duo, combined seamlessly to take out the World No. 51 pair from Egypt - Doha Hany and Adham Hatem Elgamal in an intense 36-minute encounter that went down to the wire.

The Israeli pair had to dig deep but Svetlana impressed, playing so fine at her age, as Misha, an Olympian as well, gave just the right support to his mother and together they were able to defeat the Egyptian combine, 16-21, 21-18, 21-11 to progress to the pre-quarters of the BWF World Championships.

With this win, Svetlana becomes the oldest shuttler to win a match at the BWF World Championships and it was her very first win at this stage as well, after having made her debut in 2009 in this. Before her, Mathew Fogharty, at 46, was the oldest one to win a match at the prestigious global event in the men's doubles category, all 19 years back in 2003.

However, Svetlana has been around this circuit for much longer and has even participated in the All England Open, way back in 1981 - which is 41 years ago.

Interestingly, the rising Indian mixed doubles pair of Ishaan Bhatnagar and Tanisha Crasto had met with this inspiring mother-son duo of Svetlana and Misha at the Taipei Open 2022 and on that occasion, the Indian pair recorded a resounding win against them, 21-15, 21-8.