Ah yes why do I forget Okuhara. Among his peers, I can only think of Sun Feixiang, who has a relative similar style with him. Now SFX is gradually fade into oblivion since CHN has many more talents. I do wish Naraoka could add more attacking to his game. Honestly, I feel tired and bored watching him play.
Coaches must make them practice smashes from the back of the court many times more often. Must become like second nature. Must make markings on the net top white ribbon where the shuttle should cut across when taken from highest point possible. As long as the shuttle cross over near the markings, it will land in the other side near what is intended. Once can get to the shuttle on time, it is a waste to play back a slow drop or a punch clear that opponent are already waiting for it. A fast return usually put opponent under pressure physically and mentally. Also must practice quick run to the back court many times. Badminton requires a lot of backwards running. No pain no gain. Naraoka has improved. He must be training hard. His backwards run is fast and smooth. That's good. Sent from my XQ-BT52 using Tapatalk
Why is almost the entire team skipping Indonesian masters? So they can save energy for indonesia open? Not sure if that’s right as almost every other top players from other countries are playing both?
According to the published schedule, Team A will play in Indonesia Open, Malaysia Open, and Malaysia Masters. That's 3 tournaments almost all back-to-back. They probably chose Malaysia Masters over Indonesia Masters so that the team can be fresh for the bigger Indonesia Open and have energy left for the Super 750. I think that's a better plan than spending energy to win the smaller Super 500 only then to fizzle out at the later but bigger tournaments which also award more ranking points.The B+ players will represent Japan for Indonesia Masters instead.
Bird Japan's A-/B+ team has already fizzled out at the Indonesia Masters. XD Pair Midorikawa/Saito played relatively well, and should be given a chance in Team A, but the rest..!?! Are there any potential world-beaters amongst next-generation players? I can't put my finger on anyone. At the same time, no announcement vis-à-vis team membership changes has been made following the Ranking Circuit. What was the point of that exercise, apart from giving the same old players the chance to accrue points to qualify for the All Japan Championships again later this year?
Asuka Takahashi was leading Pornpswee 10 - 1 and then went on to lose. Aya Ohori also started very well. Yes, I have to accept that having skills, power etc... is not enough to be world beaters. The moment the opponent work a little harder, they seems to focus only on how good the opponent are and how difficult it is going to be to make quick points. They seem to forget that what the opponent can do they also can do. Almost like they fear the opponent and never thought that the opponent might also fear them. Kawakami fought with more courage. I like the mix double pair. Even though they lost, points were very close. It shows that they are doing something and not spent time focusing on unnecessary things. Can only be solved if they watch more videos of their own games. And carefully analyse what they were doing when they won points and what they were doing when they lost points. What areas they were too slow and what can be done to speed up those areas. Sad for the state of WS after Okuhara and Yamaguchi. Sent from my XQ-BT52 using Tapatalk
Yep, as far as dominating the field is concerned, Momota was in a class of his own in 2018-2019. The problem is that not enough focus has been given to nurturing the next generation of players. Mismanagement, nepotism, and excess basking in the successes of the pre-Tokyo Olympics players are all to partially to blame; the Association currently has a real crisis on its hands.
Park Joo Bong said they will make different results in Paris 2024. I didn't see any hope. Yamaguchi will be bright, but there are still Sindhu, Marin, An Se Young, Chen Yufei, He Binjiao: 50% Momota and Nishimoto. ^-^ Kobayashi/Hoki ??? any chance to take gold medal ??? 10% WD: Matsuyama/Shida and .... How many percent ? 30% XD with Wata-Gashi and maybe Misaki/Kaneko. 50% I see gloomy and bleak perspective.
Across the Pacific Ocean, in the Santo Domingo Open (International Series), the lower half of the B team is faring somewhat better. Yamada/Ikeuchi (XD) seem to have withdrawn, and Moriguchi (MS) fell in R2, but the following players have made as far as the SF: MS: Takahashi Koo (Tonami), WR 1786, who has been playing since the qualifiers. If he wins today, he may well be up against Misha Zilberman in the final. MD: Takei/Endo (Meiji U.), Nishida/Mezaki (Tonami) XD: Nidaira/Asakura (NTT-East)
These seem to be fairly strict COVID-19 protocols, considering Japan's extensive relaxation of entry requirements vis-à-vis non-tourist entrants from a large number of countries, as of June 1. There are just so many contradictions at work.
Both the MS and WS winners, Naraoka and Ohori, crashed out in their first matches. This is not what I would want to say, but this does beg the question of whether a team membership change is even necessary right now . However, I still think Naraoka should be allowed to play in more Team A tournaments to prepare his ranking for the transition into Team A next year. From what we've been seeing from him so far, I don't necessarily think that he's going to become the next world-beater, but he's the best that Japan has for now to take that 4th spot. He still has time on his side, so, who knows, maybe he can grow into a top 10 player in the next couple of years. Watanabe Koki, on the other hand, is not making any progress in ranking, and he's even skipping tournaments that he should be playing in, so it doesn't look like he, himself, believes he has a chance either. Midorikawa/Saito should have been promoted to Team A after their success at the AJC. I don't know why the NBA had to be so stubborn about not promoting any player(s) who participated in the AJC into Team A even though there's a spot left in the XD team. They are just as good as Yamashita/Shinoya, imo, and they deserve the chance to build their ranking just like the other pair. The NBA needs to be more flexible. The line between Team A and Team B should not be so black and white. Players with the potential to move up should be allowed more chances to build their rankings so that once they're promoted to Team A, they are ready to compete in the higher grade tournaments so that we don't end up with Team A "guests" again, like what happened to Watanabe Koki and Takahashi Asuka.
Before Paris 2024, the NBA will need to worry about the upcoming World Championship in Tokyo first. This is THE chance to redeem from last year's disappointment, but are the players going to choke on home ground again? Except for Yamaguchi and WataGashi holding up the WS and XD categories, the other 3 categories are worse off right now compared to before Tokyo 2020. WD is still fraught with injuries/recovery. ShidaMatsu are still not consistent enough to be considered a favorite for gold. MD only has HokiKoba, but with Kobayashi's stage-fright problem, even a bronze might be a question. MS...well...I think there has been enough discussions. I hope that we'll see Momota finding himself again by August, but, to be honest, I'm just crossing my fingers that he'll get past R1 next week for now. Even with Yamaguchi and WataGashi, a gold in either discipline is still difficult, provided that they don't choke. The WS competition is just so strong that anybody in the top 8/9, except for Okuhara, has a chance to win. As for XD, now that Zheng/Huang are back to form, a gold will, no doubt, be very difficult.
I only realised today that Hoshi/Matsuda have been removed from the national team (WD, Team A). I am not quite sure what happened there.
I honestly thought you would have been aware of this. But Matsuda Aoi has retired. I wanted to know about this decision but never got to ask you @kurako
Yup, Matsuda Aoi had retired from BIPROGY this past April/May, as was posted on the team's website. No explanation was given, but from the farewell messages left by her teammates, it sounded like she's not going to be moving to another team, but quitting competitive badminton for good. There is a rumor that it was for health reason, but it is still only a rumor. The pair was withdrawn from all of the tournaments they were registered for up to her retirement announcement, so health reason does sound reasonable.
Sorry, but I have been busy over the last few months, not to mention that WD is not my forte. Today, after a long hiatus, I started updating some of my Bird Japan excel files, which had been untouched since COVID-19 paralysed the badminton scene in Japan. Things have gradually started moving, so I thought an update was called for; and it was here that the omission of this pair came to light. If anyone learns of any developments, such as retirements, etc., do bring them up. Back to Matsuda: Matsuda officially retired from BIPROGY last month on May 15, and on May 25, posted news of this on her Twitter and Instagram pages. On her Instagram site, she states that recent health problems, including an impairment to her hearing ability, had prevented her from playing matches, and this resulted in her decision to retire. Although part-time workers will occasionally do this, in Japan, it is fairly unusual to quit in the middle of the month. The retirement appears to be a sudden one.
The executive board of the Nippon Badminton Association decided today that both the World Championships (Tokyo) and Japan Open (Osaka) would be open to the public.
