Watanabe has shared his thoughts on his men doubles in his youtube channel. It's in japanese, but you can get some idea of what he's saying with auto translate in youtube.
I think he meant it figuratively. From the auto-translation, he was sharing his feelings on doing 2 events at the olympics.
Well I'll leave this here and a few more threads to discuss abt our opinions regarding this point during the 2nd set of the AE2022 XD Finals by Yuta. It was the cross court backhand defence from Yuta which was given 'In' by the line judge but the hawkeye ruled it as 'Out'. Personally it was 'IN'
To me it looks like it was in. There's always the chance it was very slightly out, but definitely not to the extent that Hawkeye showed. I will keep my belief that it was in just so that I can say that Watanabe had the most insane block off a smash Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk
Just saw some pictures from BWF's Instagram page of Watanabe and Higashino practicing at the Petronas Malaysia Open 2023, and noticed Watanabe has different shoes on! With a bit of research found out he's wearing the marketed Fu Haifeng 2023 shoes called "Blade DF-01 Pro" in a "Year of the Rabbit" colorway! Would be awesome to see him use this new shoe in the Malaysia Open and WataGashi perform well!
Who should he pair up with? Maybe someone taller with a big smash. And Arisa can partner with Misaki.
Such a wasted MD talent. Japan really needs to find Watanabe a decent MD partner before it's too late. He surely can't just be playing XD all his career with such strong MD ability.
As much as I want him to play MD also I think it's not going to happen at this stage of his career. Plus, he's also quite prone to injuries and his natural physique is not quite like his Korean counterpart Seo Seung Jae who is now achieving big wins in both categories.
this is why it will never happen: https://www.badmintoncentral.com/fo...023-r-32-to-final.191093/page-24#post-2865697