Merry Christmas!! The All Japan Championship 2024 started this morning, and live action is currently available on the tournament site at https://badminton.or.jp/all_japan/2023/. The qualification rounds will be played today, with the main draw commencing tomorrow. Incidentally, in addition to the injury-induced absences of Yamaguchi and FukuHiro, WataHiga have also withdrawn, citing the reason as 'maintenance of well-being'.
Maybe not too familiar. And there also seem to be numerous withdrawals. I think we will have to wait until tomorrow for some excitement.
Merry Christmas kurako! Thanks for keeping us, Japanese badminton fans informed about badminton in Japan.
Actually, there are numerous high calibre withdrawals in the main draw: No Nishimoto; no HokiKoba, no ShidaMatsu or NagaMatsu and, as mentioned above, no WataHiga. This year's All Japan Championship looks a little like the Ranking Circuit. Miyazaki Tomoka has a lucky draw; she may well make it to the final, where she will probably face Okuhara or Ohori.
The organizer can't be too happy about all these high profile withdrawals. The ticket prices for the latter rounds are pretty expensive aren't they? Almost as expensive as the Japan Open. You can't really blame the players though, given the January tournament schedule.
Yep, I agree on both counts. Interestingly, the NBA used to have a fairly rigid approach whereby, barring a serious injury, if you did not show up at the AJC, you would not be invited onto the National Team. This stance has slackened to the extent that high calibre players now know that their places are not in jeopardy.
Sometimes is like that complacency and when u get older ur aim changes, as a result take a safer route. Can't blame them. Anyway at the moment other than lots of competition with the WD the other genre are the usual suspects, where the 2nd is quite far away. Sent from my SM-S918B using Tapatalk
Add Takei/Endo to that. They will probably get replaced by Mitsuhashi/Okamura. Obayashi probably ruined any chance he might have had to get promoted to Team A. Miyazaki, on the other hand, I think still has a chance given her overall result this year, plus there isn't anybody else for the spot. Nidaira and Kawakami are forever Team B level and Gunji is better off working to raise her ranking again in Team B.
R2 was another chaotic day. Kurihara went down tamely to Saito Shiori. Watanabe Koki pulled off an epic comeback to finally break the QF wall, and Hatano, with his loss and overall result this year, is in danger of getting dropped from the team. Miyashita Rei might very well replace Hatano, especially if he manages to win the QF.
Hatano went down to Tanaka Yushi, so it wasn't a particularly shocking loss. He has had a bad year, though, and has been upped by Tonami teammate, Takahasho Koo. I can't see him staying in National Team B. Today, I hope that Momota prevails over Tanaka; if he does, then he will meet Naraoka in the SF. The other half of the draw is much tamer, with Tsuneyama basically guaranteed a place in the Final, unless Watanabe Koki's luck holds out. Okuhara is confidently forging ahead; I really can't envisage anyone beating her. MD will go to Koga/Saito; WD, probably to Sakuramoto/Miyaura, but, with WataHiga absenting themselves, XD is still anyone's game. Personally, I was surprised by Nakanishi/Iwagana's loss to a pair from the University of Tsukuba yesterday; that certainly was not on the cards.
Watanabe Koki's luck held out. He's pretty much guaranteed an appearance in the final. This makes the team A selection difficult, with five candidates but only four slots, unless the NBA makes an exception this year and increases it to five slots. I saw a bit of this match. It looked like Nakanishi was carrying a leg injury or got it during the match. Her partner carried her kit bag back for her. On another note, the high school WD pair of Sudo/Yamakita from Futaba Future beat the Marusugi pair of Konishi/Kawazoe who have been having a good run this year. Sudo/Yamakita are already on Team B so this should guarantee them a stay, but they're going to separate teams next year, with Sudo going to Yonex and Yamakita going to NTT East, so this will be complicated.
That does sound complicated. Both Yonex and NTT-East may be hoping to pair them up with existing players. ------ Tomorrow's SF: MS Naraoka Kodai (FWD Group) v Momota Kento (NTT-East) Watanabe Koki (BIPROGY) v Ogawa Shogo (JTEKT Stingers) WS Sugiyama Kaoru (BIPROGY) v Nidaira Natsuki (YONEX) Okuhara Nozomi (Taiyo Holdings) v Ohori Aya (Tonami) MD Yamada/Shibata (NTT-East) v Okamura/Mitsuhashi (BIPROGY) Koga/Saito (NTT-East) v Inoue/Onodera (BIPROGY) WD Hirokami/Kato (Saishunkan) v Ishikawa/Konegawa (NTT-East) Sakuramoto/Miyaura (YONEX) v Sudo/Yamakita (Futaba Future HS) XD Shimogami (Hitachi Engineering)/Hobara (YONEX) v Yamashita/Shinoya (NTT-East) Kaneko/Matsutomo (BIPROGY) v Midorikawa (NTT-East)/Saito (ACT Saikyo) ------ Impressions: Tonami and Hitachi are losing their grip. The following players' places on the A Team may be in jeopardy: Tsuneyama Kanta, Matsui/Takeuchi, Endo/Takei, Gunji Riko.
XD: Kaneko/Matsutomo posted a convincing scoreline against underwhelming Midorikawa/Saito (21-18, 21-11). They will be meeting Yamashita/Shinoya in the Final.
