SYQ beat Momota 21-18, 21-7. Stats show both tied at 17-17 in g1 before SYQ won it, g2 was a breeze for the Chinese.
Not sure what to think, the first game was decent and obviously its SYQ not some random player so it might not need too disappointing?
Yup, my thread earlier was based on the score and stats. Just saw the highlights on youtube, and here's my take on the game. Momota tried to attack and win g1 (he was playing towards draft, right?) but lost his duel with SYQ at the net. G2 against draft, he was not able to defend SYQ's smashes. Correct me as this was the first time I tried to give my analysis . Ganbatte Momo
Is SYQ defense so much better than him that he even with the draft he still lost game one and have no ans in game 2? That should not be the case
Normally I don't quote myself, but there you go... Edit: @Michael V remarked correctly that Momota is top committed and has to play big tournaments. I honestly see no big problem here. Players, including very prominent ones, miss tournaments all the time with "injuries".
With his ranking at the moment, he cannot skip big tournaments. If he can't play in them, that will mean his ranking drop so low that he has to play qualifying rounds for 500. He can play in smaller tournaments to gain some match fitness/sharpness, but he'd still face the big guns early in 500/750/1000. Yes, I also agree that his mental fortitude is not as strong as Nadal and Novak.
Or just send a special request to Ben Yoneyama for a limited reproduction of Armortec 700 Or get an Arcsaber Z-slash to relive the days of his youth
since we are talking about his racket, I was wondering why he choose 99 and/or 99Pro which is a sledgehammer? With his play style, I was expecting him to either wield 100ZZ, 88DP, or even Arc11P instead of 99/99P
Don't know why he played quite well against his team mates at the All Japan. But really, his horrible judgement of baseline shots on his side and the opponent side cost him at least 10 points in both games yesterday. Not to mention, now he's unable to see/anticipate which way the opponent smash is coming towards him. He really needs a massive change in the way he practices badminton. What an unfortunately massively different career trajectory compared to Axelsen. Sent from my SM-G988W using Tapatalk
I just want to mention that in 2021, Kento Momota won the Indonesia Masters, and he was also runner up for the Denmark Open: https://www.tournamentsoftware.com/...-3bdf-4e29-93e9-cd1f0bd65990/tournaments/2021. His win at the Indonesia Masters and his runner up at the Denmark Open all happened after his car accident. When Momota won the Indonesia Masters, he beat players such as CTC, Laksha Sen, and Antonsen (who was better back in 2021). So clearly, Momota was still capable of winning a top tournament, and making it to 2nd place in another top tournament, after his car accident. That's not to say Momota's car accident hasn't caused some type of long term injury, that has lowered his play from peak Momota. Perhaps he is still not fully recovered from the car accident, or it's a confidence issue, or it's both. Another explanation is that some players peak earlier. Taufik peaked earlier. By Taufik's late twenties and early thirties, he was a shell of his former self. Compare Taufik to say, Lee Chong Wei. Lee Chong Wei was still a top 2 player in the world at the age of 35/36 (or whenever it was before LCW retired). So assuming Momota did fully recover from the car accident, maybe Momota is like Taufik, rather than like LCW.
Taufik's main problem was that he lacked the discipline of LD and LCW to keep his body in top shape. I don't think KM is the type to slack off to that extent.
Coule be but imho logically it’s that: 1. the meta of the game at the highest levels has evolved to include a faster, more push oriented game with immediate punish from steep and quality smashes, which means the moment Momota can’t keep up with the pressure and falls a step behind he loses the point with certainty 2. Momota no longer has the physicality and mental strength to withstand this sort of pressure; he used to not let some of these points waver him because he’d lose the battle but win the war. These days he doesn’t appear to believe he’d win the war even if he has a headstart.
People all over the internet have shared horror stories of how they are not the same anymore after contracting Covid. I think that it is highly possible that you are very right about this one. As to Covid, I think that Momota has become better recently. Its also a little bit funny but covid has probably helped Victor Axelson by frying his anger neurons. It is a very strange disease.
Momota was pulled out of Japan's Top 4 Tournament earlier this month, due to concerns over his confidence and backache. So no, I do not think he is OK.
