The Malaysia International Challenge kicked off today, and featured the qualifying rounds, as well as R1 of the MS. The results of the MS are as follows: Through to R2: Koga Minoru, Shimono Hashiru, Obayashi Takuma, Naraoka Kodai Defeated in R1: Omoto Shota I want to see Naraoka go all the way!
According to the NBA, the following doubles players will not be participating in the Gwangju Korea Masters: MD: Kamura/Sonoda WD: Nagahara/Matsumoto; Fukushima/Hirota As the above players have secured their places at the World Tour Finals, this is only to be expected.
I am sure there will be more JPN players to withdraw from Korea Masters after HKO is finished. AY and Endo/Watanabe can secure their spot in HKO. Just wondering, Yuta/Arisa have secured their spot, will they participate in Korea too?
The list of 内定選手, that is prospective players, to be officially employed by Japan's corporate teams from April 2020, has been announced. https://www.sj-league.jp/pdf/2019-20/SJ_リーグ登録選手（内定選手一覧）SJ.pdf (Sorry, the table is only available in Japanese.) 1. Naraoka Kodai is not listed, which means that he will either, 1) go to university, or 2) go pro. 2. We can expect see quite a few retirements from teams that have more than 1 or 2 内定選手. This applies, in particular, to NTT-East's women's team. Mitani Minatsu and Hashimoto Yui come to mind.
How much is needed for Endo and Watanabe to seal their WTF spot? Sorry if this has been mentioned before.
1. A model similar to Okuhara? Doesn't sound like a good idea for such a young player. NTT would be great. 2. There are a lot that could retire, imo. Most interestly, will Yonemoto (and also Tanaka) continue? A heavy injury, the Olympics are already gone, and she's quite old for a female badminton player. Hokuto Bank has also recruited quite a few young players. Would be a massive shame if being weeled off court was the last we saw of her. Others that come to mind are Haruko Suzuki, Ayumi Mine (was first made captain, but has passed that on to Nao Ono within a few months) and even Takamatsu. By the time the top 4 tournaments ends, they probably know they if they will play at the Olympics or not. If not, what's left to play for? Especially Takahashi already looks like she doesn't want to play anymore, anyway.
Now how would a corporate team deal with Papa Naraoka? I get the impression that he is part of the bargain. Suzuki Haruko only recently transferred to American Vape. As they have a dearth of skilled singles players and are not picking up any naitei-senshu (内定選手), I think she will still be active for another year or two. Saishunkan, too, may want to wait until Gunji Riko comes along before they drop Mine. As for the A-Team, ..... , yep, Takamatsu seem to be fighting a losing battle as far as the Olympics are concerned. But Unisys would suffer badly if they were to quit. As I can't really see Takahashi Sayaka staying on much longer, either, this would leave a depleted corporate team, without any star players. MS is also ailing badly... Sakai is definitely out, but the recent performances of Nishimoto and Tsuneyama are even more exasperating. Actually, Nishimoto is going to drop below Tsuneyama in the rankings after today's performance, ... I really can't see either of them making it to Tokyo. It's far too late to do anything about this debacle now, but Park Joo Bong should have had the foresight to cultivate promising upcoming players, such as Watanabe Koki, Naraoka Kodai, and Shimono Hashiru, a little more attentively. Instead, what we have is Nishimoto, Tsuneyama, and Sakai falling off without any replacements in sight, and Momota alone having to shoulder the burden of producing results for the nation. Actually, Tokyo 2020 seems to have resulted in paralysis and a lack of vision across the board. Since right at the beginning of this year, Japan's coaching team has been totally fixated on beefing up the A-Team, in the blind hope that this extremely limited number of players would actually make the cut. At the same time, access to this elite club by anyone in Team B has, for the entire year, been rendered next to impossible. The latter have been confined to playing in a restricted number of low-ranked tournaments, giving them little exposure to top players, little room for development, and little opportunity to move up in the rankings. Somehow, I don't think this approach has paid off.
Nishimoto and Tsuneyama both actually have very good skills and good speed. They seems to lack mental power to endure high pressures and keep a positive mind. Maybe when they play against another Japanese player in team B, they can somehow overcome these issues and allow their good skills and good speed to work for them. Yes, I wished some players in team B were given more chances and training. Skills and speed can be developed. But some players in team B might have stronger mental power if they were given more chances and the training. I was also very surprised by Yusuke Onedera after watching him play. Sorry, if I spelled some names incorrectly.
i'm sure their budget is not unlimited to carry along every player they'd like to nurture in case their best choices don't pan out. more often than not an athlete fails to fulfill their promise of potential. world beaters and flameouts come from every type of team infrastructure in every sport. so do politics, helicopter parents, clashing personalities, personal agendas and a shitload of other factors making it impossible to churn out winners consistently. it creates an emotional cycle for us fans who can only cast judgement on every decision from the other side of the window. admittedly my sense of urgency towards my favorites is definitely heightened because of tokyo: "show everyone how dominant you are, but be careful, but win every tournament, but rest, but..."
The Sports Agency credited Badminton with the highest possible ranking, "S", at the beginning of this year and, as a result, there was a 30% increase in the annual budget for the sport in FY 2019. I am not sure how this money is distributed, but there should have been a little extra leeway to experiment, or put some kind of 'Plan B' in place. Yep, I understand that there must be a whole miscellany of factors and considerations at play. All the same, some team members have proven to be consistent underperformers. In 2019, Nishimoto and Tsuneyama, for example, have only managed to get past R16 on 4 and 6 occasions, respectively. And this is out of a total of 21 tournaments. They are just not keeping up with the top players, and this should have been noticeable from quite a while back. PJB made an interesting comment at the end of last the year, just after the National A and B teams were announced. As it so happened, WD Sakuramoto/Takahata had a WR of 10 or so at the time, but were still relegated to the National B Team. When a reporter asked why they couldn't at least train with the A Team, PJB's reply was that the Ajinomoto National Training Centre only housed ten courts available to train on simultaneously and that, on the grounds of capacity, the pair would be excluded. The composition of Japan's A-Team is small, rigid and impenetrable partly because of logistic considerations such as these. Unfortunately, when the results aren't forthcoming, there are no means of salvaging anything. The knee-jerk reaction is simply 'let's push on with what we have got'. Absolutely!
...and therein lies the gamble. how much time is the proper amount of time to give someone a chance to break through? if you expect results too fast nba becomes bam 2.0... nishimoto is 25 so his time is running out fast. @ 23 tsuneyama still deserves some rope.
I agree with Cunning Linguist about Takahashi looking jaded and uninterested these days; Even Matsutomo to some extent. This was further evident in yesterday's match against the Chinese Taipei pair as the camera was positioned very close to the court. Despite the great angle, I did not enjoy the match at all because I was simply watching two Japanese robots playing and going through the motions. No emotions, joy, spirit, etc. Their decline has been hard and fast. It's as if they are playing simply because they have been entered to play by NBA. I wonder how they put up with each other for a decade!
I think Mine still plays pretty well, not many Japanese players can beat her except Team A players I think?
The list of JPN players who are qualified for WTF has been (almost) completed. Kanta is still able to qualify to WTF. But, most likely, he will be eliminated as soon as WTW plays in Korea Masters. The JPN players who qualify to WTF are KM, NO, AY, Kamura/Sonoda, Endo/Watanabe, FukuHiro, MatsuNaga, Watanabe/Higashino. Most of them have participated in WTF last year, with the exception of Kamura/Sonoda and FukuHiro, both of them were "usurped" at the last moment. TakaMatsu won the WTF last year, but fail to qualify to WTF this year. It is expected for TakaMatsu to lose some points and have their ranking drop. Can't wait for their outfit at gala dinner. What kind of funny pictures we get to see from KM?
Mine is still a valuable asset at Saishunkan, but as it is difficult to conceive of her rising any further in the world rankings, her place on the national team is in jeopardy. She will need to do well at the All Japan Championships later this month in order to retain her place.
Hi all, I'm new here. Wonder what happens to takamatsu pair where frequently lose before Quarter. Chances for them to play Tokyo 2020 is slim. How about performance of the double team B or juniors double as read previous post where discussed a lot on single player. I'm new and just focusing on Japan team recently.
