Japan's National Team selection (A & B Teams) for 2019 has been made. A Team: https://www.badminton.or.jp/national/member/2019.html B Team: https://www.badminton.or.jp/national/member/2019.html#groupB Mitani is no longer on the list... Neither did she play for NTT-East in the recent S/J League match against Unisys. A premature retirement?
The national team schedule (annual calendar) for 2019 has also been released. https://www.badminton.or.jp/concerned/files/schedule20181211.pdf (Japanese)
TanaYone still Team A, Sakutaka still Team B. Who do they have to f... to get promoted? Also, Chrome's automatic translation into German for "Hashiru Shimono": "Suburbanismus" (yes, one word).
No JPN players participate in India Open. This also happens this year. In the end, both of them will have to played at high level tournaments since they are in the top 10 list (top committed players). I also don't know why SakuraTaka doesn't end up in Team A. Probably, SakuraTaka will play few lower level tournaments next year. Just guessing.
You don't remember that TakaMatsu spent a total of 4 mins on court before retiring at Syed Modi India Open in Nov 2018? All just to earn enough points to oust their compatriots FukuHiro from the WTF... Sent from my SM-G965W using Tapatalk
India Open and Syed Modi International are two completely different tournaments. I am talking about tournaments, not the places.
Looking at the JPN players' chance at WTF, I should say that all of them have a good chance to go to SF. Except Endo/Watanabe, the JPN players are seeded players.
I dont think Akane has a good chance to go to knock out stage, consider her condition and H2H to other opponents in her group
She needs to win the first match against Sindhu to have a realistic chance of progressing. Don't think it's very likely. She's going to lose a lot of ranking points as well.
Yamaguchi was actually in very good form at the All Japan Championships just a couple of weeks ago. She erased Takahashi in the SF, and more than convincingly beat Okuhara in the Finals. She should be upbeat at the moment.
Ranking points are not the only thing she can possibly lost. Her status as JPN WS 1 is at stake. If NO performs better than AY in this WTF, this can happen. Let's see how well they performs. WS category is very open. Anything can happen. All the best for JPN ladies.
Yes, as expected. Still, well deserved. Service error and unforced errors in the final stages of the first game, lots of (unforced) errors for a 0-8 run after the interval in the second. You can't win matches like that, not at this level. Unless she finds convincing wins over TTY and BWZ, she's out. There's some soul searching to be done, because despite reaching her main goal (Uber Cup) and showing her actual class in France, the year was quite a step back in terms of playing quality.
Not necessarily. All the Japanese players here at the World Tour Finals participated in the All Japan Championship, with Momota, Yamaguchi, Okuhara, Endo/Watanabe, Watanabe/Higashino, and TakaMatsu all going as far as the Finals of that Championship. Yamaguchi, as far as I know, isn't inferior to the other players in terms of stamina. Whatever the case, it is not over yet.
Yamaguchi doesn't have week stamina, but playing many matches while opponents have 2 free week is a disadvantage. I don't want to be find something to blame but this is the case now. In all England this year, Yamaguchi lost because her stamina is not enough, before that she's won Germany open title while her opponent, Tai Tzy Ying, is free in this week. Then in China 1000, she lost to Chen yufie just because she was not enough stamina to keep race with Chen in third game (set 3) Now she takes deep breath in THE FIRST MATCH with Sindhu and it's only second game. It's even not the third game. Actually Momota is luck this time, if the group B was Son wan ho/Shi yuqi/Ginting. I am afraid of he would lack of stamina for the whole tournament. (the situation can be worst if Chen Long was qualified and took Shi yuqi's position) For the chance to go to semi-final, it's not over yet, but with the situation I see Yamaguchi on the court. It's over. We should also consider the height of Yamaguchi (or Okuhara), they are not high and they have to run more than tall players, especially very high Sindhu. I mean, they must have as much stamina as possible if they want to win Sindhu.
I just realize that JPN players have new jersey now. It's new to me. Is the jersey only for WTF or being carried to the next year? The jersey has changed thrice this year.
Their (along with Minions') new jerseys are part of the 2019 lineup so... yeah we'll see them worn until sometime next year