The All Japan Championships results for November 30 (all categories up until 14:00) are available at http://www.badminton-a.com/all71japan/20171203index.htm. Click 男子単 for MS, 女子単 for WS, 男子複 for MD, 女子複 for WD, and 混合複 for XD results. <All in Japanese, of course.> @Cunning Linguist...It looks like it was actually Fukushima/Hirota who won. On top of this, the latest news flash is that in the MS tournament, Igarashi Yu (Chuo U.) has beaten Naraoka Kodai (Namioka HS) by 2-0, ...as predicted by @Master. And that Sakai Kazumasa has beaten Yamazawa Naoki (again, 2-0). Accordingly, as far as MS is concerned, the top four seeds have progressed to the QF, ...Momota seeming to struggle the most.
Great! So here is MS | Line-up QF 1. Kenta Nishimoto (A) vs Yusuke Onodera (B) QF 2. Kanta Tsuneyama (B) vs Takuma Ueda (A) ------------------------------------------------------ QF 3. Kento Momota vs Riichi Takeshita (B) QF 4. Yu Igarashi (A) vs Kazumasa Sakai (A)
Sounds likely. I guess she might come to play 1 point x'( It's stressful to see her get on court these days because you never know if she's gonna retire after the first point I read her blog post though and seems like she has not ruled out participating in Dubai, although her repeated mention of 2020 sound like she won't play before the All England next year. We shall see!
At 16 years and 4 months Naraoka has apparently surpassed Masuda Keita by becoming the youngest MS player to make it to the best 16 of the All Japan Championships.
Not necessarily. Regardless of the result, Sakai will automatically secure a place on National Team A if he manages to return to the top of the domestic ranking table later this month. He is number two at the moment (behind Nishimoto), but the points he earned in Hong Kong have not been added yet. For MS and WS, spots on National Team A are secured through three avenues: 1. Making the finals of the All Japan Championships (in the case of doubles, only winners automatically secure a place) 2. Being No. 1 in the domestic rankings 3. At the recommendation of the NBA.
Really happy for Ayumi Mine, who beat Sayaka Takahashi in straight games. She dropped from 16 to 95 in the world since June, has played only seven tournaments in '17 and is no longer part of the national team. For her to have a realistic chance to make the semi final (or even the final), is really great. I'm always amazed watching her play. 150cm is not exactly ideal height for a badminton player, yet she managed to enter the top 20.
It's likely that will happen. But, it's not a direct result of that match. Yu Igarashi didn't show a good result while he's in team A. If he lose, surely he'll dump out from Team A. On the other hand, if Sakai lose, his position is more secured (at least he will get the ticket for Team A as he have good results among others JPN MS in entire 2017). My prediction is Sakai and Nishimoto 90% would still being Team A member for next 2018. Takuma Ueda 60% chance to stay in Team A. Kanta Tsuneyama or Riichi Takeshita have a possibility to get promotion into Team A (replacing Yu Igarashi), unless Takuma Ueda going to All Japan Final (have to defeat Kanta Tsuneyama and Kenta Nishimoto).
It will all depend on the results, but Igarishi now being a student surely isn't helping his cause. Takeshita has proven in 2017 that he really isn't a SS player, maybe not even a GPG player. Compared to Tsuneyama, who's also 7 years younger, he's not got much going for himself.
Watching Fukushima/Hirota vs Sakuramoto/Takahata at the moment. http://nooblive.com/node/993 Hirota was the one playing xd for the last months, but it's Fukushima who's playing badly and making all the mistakes. Very evident again today.
Takeshita has taken the first game (22-20). Oh dear, if Momota loses, I will be cancelling my train ticket to Tokyo tomorrow.
Come on, you can't be serious. There's some good badminton on tomorrow (exclusively ladies, it seems).
