On June 9, Imai Akihiro, former Renesas/Saishunkan coach, had yet another case... the third!!, filed against him with the Kumamoto Prefectural Police. However, this time he apparently did not act alone. He colluded with another coach, Yoshimoto Keiko, in allegedly extorting 400,000 yen from a third, unnamed former coach. Details are sparse, but the extortion seems to have been related to the transfer of the badminton team and staff from Renesas to Saishunkan in late 2014~early 2015. Imai is said to have threatened the coach that if he/she did not hand 400,000 yen to Yoshitomo, then Imai would not co-operate with the coach's transfer. (http://www.sanspo.com/sports/news/20180610/spo18061005000002-n1.html). The unnamed coach obliged with the demand and proceeded to join Saishunkan. Separate from the criminal cases filed with the police, the NBA is expected to reach its own verdict on Imai sometime this month. In the meantime, Suetsuna Satoko, WD in the 2008 and 2012 Olympics, has joined American Vape (Gifu Tricky Panders) as coach/player.
I counted 34 players entered the Yonex Canada Open, besides Kodai Naraoka, does any of the others have good potential? Link to the players' list: http://www.tournamentsoftware.com/sport/players.aspx?id=65F72699-96CD-458F-B8E1-F1648CF4EEA6
MS: No. WS: No. (Moto Hayashi maybe; very big maybe) MD: Current World Junior Champions Yunosuke Kubota, Mahiro Kaneko WD: Sakuramoto/Takahata surely, but I don't know if that's what you meant by "potential". Other than that, Shida/Matsuyama. XD: Most of them train hundreds of miles apart, that system isn't going to produce world class xd combinations. Most potential Kubota/Shida, All Japan finalists.
Oh, so that‘s why she and Miyuki Maeda had a goodbye post in their respective Instagram. Do you know about Miyuki Maeda? Is she still playing or coaching for Saishunkan?
I don't know much, except that Maeda left Saishunkan at the end of March 2018, and got married earlier this month. She free-lanced as a commentator at the Osaka IC, which indicates that she may have an interest in that line of work.
Of course not on court A or B. Fukuhiro aren't playing at all and Shidamatsu won the second edition of the grudge match against Akane Araki and Imai's incompetent issue in straight games. Second doubles is Ono/Yamaguchi, which would have been great to see, but apparently watching Kento Momota carry a posse of mediocre males is of greater interest.
With eight matches being played simultaneously, the selection was always going to be intriguing. One match from the men's tournament and one from the women's. Vis-à-vis the women's match, the organisers made the choice that was going to prove the least sensationalist. As to the men's tournament: It is a shame that they decided to focus on NTT-East in the QF because it probably means that Tonami will be shown in the SF, and I will get to see neither Momota play nor the NTT-East vs Unisys match.
Incidentally, the location of the Akita Masters is on the opposite tip of this island. I am not quite sure what the plot is, but rather than trying to draw fans to make the effort to watch badminton live, the NBA's itinerary is beginning to look like a misguided regional revitalisation programme.
Oh god, I missed the matchup with Unisys because I forgot that quarterfinal and semifinal are played on the same day. 2-3 in the end, but quite a showing overall. AY losing in straight games to NO is quite worrysome, though, given the Indonesia draw.
Yep, and Momota, who was scheduled to play fourth didn't even need to show up. NTT-East was destroyed by Unisys in the SF with a score line of 3-0. So, the only game that he actually played was that MD on Friday. I pity the fans who travelled all the way down to Yamaguchi to see him.
Yeah, must be quite a bummer. But there is such a major gulf in class between him and his teammates, a 0-3 was bound to happen against Unisys or Tonami anyway. Nami Matsuyama played a godlike first game (let's not talk about the second) against Takahashi and Higashino, so my hopes for Shidamatsu are renewed. She's still 19 and when she plays like that, the sky's the limit. Hopefully there will be results in the upcoming tournaments and a few lucky draws, too. I think both NTT (m) and Saishunkan really need some proper recruiting so that their respective top players also have top sparring available. It's really hard to find that for Kento, I guess. Btw, how pathetic by Ayaka Takahashi to make such a meal out of it at 56:57. Unisys will be Unisys.
So they have upped the price money for Japan Open to have 700.000 USD. http://dyjapanbadminton.com/2018/ More importantly @kurako do you know how to tickets for Japan Open? I will be in Japan in for that week.
Really! I am thinking of going too, although it will have to be at the weekend for me. According to the relevant HP (http://dyjapanbadminton.com/2018/), tickets will be on sale from July 7 at "Lawson Tickets" online (http://l-tike.com/sports/) or "loppi" machines in Lawson/Mini-stop convenience stores throughout Japan (http://www.nic-nagoya.or.jp/en/e/archives/382).
Thanks a lot! So I assume you would need to order the tickets online and pay at the convenience store. Yeah I think I will go in the weekend. Most probably Saturday for the semi-finals only, since it’s quite a long commute for me. I am really hoping that a lot of the Japanese team would go through!
You should be able to buy the tickets directly from the Loppi machines located in the Lawson/Mini-stop convenience stores. I don't think that you necessarily need to go online. I agree that Saturday is probably the better option; there is no guarantee that any Japanese players will still be around in the finals on Sunday.
Japan Open 2018's venue is the Olympic 2020's venue for Badminton event: Musashino Forest Sport Plaza. Great! For the Olympics, the schedule revealed as below:
