youngest player to win u-15 championships and youngest player to win a match at All Japan National Championship (13 y.o), currently most talked about junior player and should be among the top single players in Japan in the near future
can share more details about him? Have not been following some local tournaments for some time. hehe...
some of his accomplishments last year was youngest ever player to win u-15, youngest ever player to win a match in All Japan tournament (but then lost in the second qualifying round) and finished top 4 in u-17 (all these feats accomplished while only 13 y.o.) here's a video of Naraoka (12 y.o) playing his favorite player TH in an exhibition https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5NdfILGRR8
thanks. Dig out some news about him with Uncle Google just now. Looking forward to see him at the AJC and WJC
Bio: Name.........: Ko(u)dai Naroaka D.o.b.........: 30/06/2001 Hometown..: Aomori, Japan School.......: Namioka Junior High School Height.......: 171cm (Dec. 2014) Weight.......: 64kg http://shuntrend.com/2838.html Mugshot: http://www.smash-net.tv/topics/details/id/1122/ [video=youtube;YOZpfwx83dM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOZpfwx83dM[/video] http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/めざせ!2020年のオリンピアン〜東京五輪の原石たち〜
interesting video, thanks for providing the link demolid some highlights about Naraoka in the video 5:23 wall practice at home even after a long day practicing in the club, 7:04 gotta love how he jumped to hug his dad (who's also his coach) after u-13 victory, this one is right in the feels 8:12 his dad explaining the toughest enemy he's facing right now which is himself, with a lot of junior title in hand he started to show self content and his dad think he isn't training as hard compared to when he was younger when he used to be always drenched and soaked in sweat after hard training, recently he even hardly perspires 23:17 valuable advice from his senior Tago about how to play world level badminton, to keep the play simple, that he'll have to start from scratch and reset himself, to forget everything he learned all along and by the time he'll be able to do it then he'll be a much better player
The NBA has registered Naraoka's name at the White Night 2015. His father will be his companion/coach this time. Let's see how far can this 13 years old boy go.
he's also been featured in the biggest badminton magazine here, even his dad got his own regular coaching column now ^^
lol he reminds me of one the famous comedian here ^^ a little update, Naraoka took the BWF 2015 Asian Junior Championship U-15 title https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C66go6_aBIg special coaching from his favorite legend, Taufik Hidayat https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l772qN7jZ80
Currently ranked 194 in the world, he just made it to the semi finals of the Vietnam Open by beating #11 seed Hsueh Hsuan Yi (58 wr), #1 seed Hsu Jen Hao (28 wr) and world junior #1 Lakshya Sen.
D.O.B 30/06/2001, he is still 16 y.o. and I think he will participate in 2017 World Junior Championships. His junior WR: 14 as second highest JPN MS Junior (after Koki Watanabe). Surely he will be a strong contender to become World Junior champion this year.
It would be nice if Japan started developing a good set of male players. Despite their success in ladies, their men have struggled.
He is playing right now, stream at badvidliv. He comfortably won the first game, but is trailing in the second.
Kodai Naraoka into his first WJC Final after beating Li Shifeng (3rd seed). He will meet Kunlavud Vitidsard from THA tomorrow. And he have positive H2H against Kunlavud. Their last and the only meeting was in 2018 NZ Open, he won through rubber games. Kunlavud is the former champion (2017) but the chance is there.
He might have missed up the shot at the title tomorrow in the second game. He was 19-13 up, only two points away from the final and then changed his controlled game to finish it quickly, missed several sitters, lost 8 straight points and had to play a third game. Very frustrating tbh.