Huaiwen Xu (; born 2 August 1975) is a German

badminton Badminton is a racquet sport played using racquets to hit a shuttlecock across a net. Although it may be played with larger teams, the most common forms of the game are "singles" (with one player per side) and "doubles" (with two players pe ...

player. Born in

Guiyang Guiyang (; ; Mandarin pronunciation: ), historically rendered as Kweiyang, is the capital of Guizhou province of the People's Republic of China. It is located in the center of the province, situated on the east of the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau, ...

Guizhou Guizhou (; formerly Kweichow) is a landlocked province in the southwest region of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Guiyang, in the center of the province. Guizhou borders the autonomous region of Guangxi to t ...

, China, she decided to play for Germany because the Chinese thought that she was too short to play professional world badminton.Said by David Mercer/ Gillian Clark on August 13, 2008 in match against

Xie Xingfang Xie Xingfang (born January 8, 1981) is a retired Chinese badminton player from Guangzhou, Guangdong. She is a former defending two-time world champion for women's singles, and former women's singles World No. 1. Her first big title was in girl ...

in the quarterfinals of the women's singles shown on the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...

Career

Xu was among the most successful of a number of Chinese-born female players who emigrated from their badminton-rich homeland, in part, for a better opportunity to play in the world's biggest events. Beginning in 2003 when she won a spate of middle tier open tournaments in Europe, Xu went on to become one of the more consistent performers on the international circuit. She was a women's singles bronze medalist twice at the

BWF World Championships The BWF World Championships, formerly known as IBF World Championships, and also known as the World Badminton Championships, is a badminton tournament sanctioned by Badminton World Federation (BWF). The tournament is one of the most prestigious i ...

(

2005 File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; "Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris was discovered in ...

and

2006 File:2006 Events Collage V1.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2006 Winter Olympics open in Turin; Twitter is founded and launched by Jack Dorsey; The Nintendo Wii is released; Montenegro 2006 Montenegrin independence referendum, votes to declare ...

) and won

European Championships The European Championships is a multi-sport tournament which brings together the existing European Championships of some of the continent's leading sports every four years. The inaugural edition in 2018 was staged by the host cities of Berlin, ...

and

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

over

Mia Audina Mia Audina Tjiptawan (born 22 August 1979) is a former Indonesian badminton player who represented Indonesia and later the Netherlands in international competitions. A badminton prodigy, Audina first played Uber Cup (the women's world team champi ...

and

Tine Rasmussen Tine Baun (née Rasmussen; born 21 July 1979) is a Danish former badminton player. Most notably, she won the All England Open Badminton Championships women's singles title three times in 2008, 2010, and 2013 – the last of these being her final ...

respectively in the finals. At the

2008 Beijing Olympics The 2008 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIX Olympiad () and also known as Beijing 2008 (), were an international multisport event held from 8 to 24 August 2008, in Beijing, China. A total of 10,942 athletes from 204 Nat ...

Xu was eliminated in a close quarterfinal match by China's

, the world's number one ranked player. Among Xu's more than twenty national and international singles titles are the Scottish (2003),

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken *Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...

(2003),

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

(2005), and

Swiss Swiss may refer to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina *Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses *Swiss-system tournament, in various games and sports *Swiss Internation ...

(2006) Opens, the

Copenhagen Masters The Copenhagen Masters is a high-ranking tournament in badminton. It is an invitation tournament held annually since 1993 in the week between Christmas and New Year in Copenhagen. The Danish Danish may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to ...

(2007), and five consecutive (2004–2008) German National Championships. Notably, she earned all of these titles after turning 27, an age at which world level singles players often feel that their best years are behind them. Xu retired from playing on the international circuit in 2009 and worked as a coach for two years at the Bellevue Badminton Club near

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

, teaching the Junior National team of young badminton players hoping to succeed in professional badminton. In 2010, she was appointed as an

International Olympic Committee The International Olympic Committee (IOC; french: link=no, Comité international olympique, ''CIO'') is a non-governmental sports organisation based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is constituted in the form of an association under the Swiss ...

athlete role model for the

2010 Summer Youth Olympics The 2010 Summer Youth Olympics ( ta, 2010 கோடைக்கால இளையோர் ஒலிம்பிக் விளையாட்டுக்கள் ms, Sukan Olimpik Belia Musim Panas 2010), officially known as the I Summer ...

. From 2011 to 2012, she served the Dutch Badminton Association as their National Coach.

Personal life

Xu speaks fluent Chinese, German and English. She is married to Matthew Curtain, the CEO of British Weightlifting. The couple lives in the United Kingdom and has a daughter.

Achievements

World Championships

''Women's singles''

European Championships

''Women's singles''

BWF Grand Prix

The BWF Grand Prix had two levels, the Grand Prix and Grand Prix Gold. It was a series of badminton tournaments sanctioned by the

Badminton World Federation The Badminton World Federation (BWF) is the international governing body for the sport of badminton recognised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). It was founded in 1934 as the International Badminton Federation (IBF) with nine member ...

(BWF) and played between 2007 and 2017. The World Badminton Grand Prix was sanctioned by the International Badminton Federation from 1983 to 2006. ''Women's singles'' : BWF Grand Prix Gold tournament : BWF & IBF Grand Prix tournament

International Challenge/Series

''Women's singles''

Record against selected opponents

Record against year-end Finals finalists, World Championships semi-finalists, and Olympic quarter-finalists.

References

External links

*
BWF player profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Xu, Huaiwen 1975 births Living people Badminton players from Guizhou People from Guiyang Chinese female badminton players German female badminton players Chinese emigrants to Germany Naturalized citizens of Germany German sportspeople of Chinese descent Olympic badminton players of Germany Badminton players at the 2004 Summer Olympics Badminton players at the 2008 Summer Olympics