Introduced to badminton by his father at the early age of 10, Nguyen Tien Minh was immediately captivated by the sport.

The interest soon developed into a passion which led to Tien Minh's crucial decision in 2001 when the athlete was 18 years old: to take on the path of becoming a professional badminton player instead of carrying on his education as his family wished.

However, Tien Minh's career did not become well known nationwide until 2002 when he, at the age of 19, defeated the long time national champion, Nguyễn Phú Cường, and won the gold medal for the men's singles category.

Nevertheless, despite Tien Minh's quick progress, the badminton player was receiving a salary of less than 150 US dollars a month, as most Vietnamese athletes were at the time.

After years of contributing to the nation's sport team, while his ranking has been progressing significantly and rapidly, Tien Minh's income has only been increased by around 50 dollars.

Vietnamese athletes, with incomes much higher than that of Tien Minh's, normally have specially assigned specialists to look after their every aspect, such as diet, injuries, and endurance training, not to mention all the top ranking sporting facilities provided for by the government.

On the other side of the scale, he has been trained in an environment with nothing but poor equipment and has to rely mostly on his family's financial support, the effort of his few coaches, and the contributions of his teammates.