Just barely 200 post for AE champion and Olympic medalist. I would have thought player would be more talked about when one has 3 SS titles and lovely play.
What happened to Okuhara ? I watched her match against Akane in Denmark and she looked really sluggish and made lots of easy mistakes. Is she injured or something ?
Really a bad time for Okuhara :'( After dropping out of the French, China and Hong Kong Open; she retired in her 2nd round match in the All Japan National Championship where she was the defending champion citing pain in her knee :/ Because of her withdrawal, especially in Hong Kong where was the runner-up and in dubai, she will drop out of the TOP 10 by the end of the year.. She will also likely loses the WS1 position in the national team, seeing that Sayaka Sato was the winner of the All Japan this year and Akane Yamaguchi the runner-up this year. Nozomi posted on her blog that having failed to reach the later stages of the All Japan she was not sure of what would be her schedule for the coming year, and that she was still glad the doctor and trainer allowed to participate in the All Japan and that she would like to concentrate on treatment and rehabilitation now.
You know she had a long stretch out of the game with knee injury. Otherwise we would have a lot more on her. I think she's great and her different individual character style was a great boost to the interest in Ladies Badminton.
Already seeing the aftermath of Nozomi's withdrawal in the 2nd round of the Japan National Championship as the Japan Badminton Association chose to register Sayaka Sato and Akane Yamaguchi as WS1 and WS2 in the upcoming badminton Asia Mixed Championship. The good news is that Nozomi Okuhara was maintained in the A Team, as was announced by the Japan Badminton Association at the end of last year. Fukuman/ Yonao not as lucky, as despite being a top 10 ranked pair, they were kicked out of the A Team and relegated to the B Team (a good decision in my opinion as Yonao has not shown any kind of progress in the past year and has proved to be the burden dragging down this team - way too inconsistent, average smash, average backhand). Yuki Fukushima and Sayaka Hirota , ranked #24, were promoted instead.Which is a good decision in my opinion, as they have a lot of potential. Yuta Watanabe / Arisa Higashino (19 and 21 yo) make their entry in the Japan XD A Team. A very good decision as they have much more potential then the really average/ unimpressive pair of Kenta Kazuno / Ayane Kurihara (especially Kazuno...) I expect this new pair to surpass their senior by the end of the year. Kenichi Hayakawa and Eriko Hirose, two recently retired MD and WS have been selected as coaches for the B Team. (along with Keita Masuda). http://www.badzine.net/2016/12/japan-names-its-2017-national-squad/
It was obvious Yuta and Arisa were going to be 'the next' XD pair. She's really exciting to watch, and although he isn't there quite yet, it's obvious he could be soon. Unfortunately for Japan they have nobody to raise Arisa, and for Yuta there's only Endo to act as mentor.
Watching TV this weekend, Gillian Clark said Nozomi had shoulder injury. So did she also have a knee injury? Just wondering if changing to Mizuno racquets had a contribution to the shoulder injury.
New world champion after an epic final. She also speaks English for the interview after more than 100 minutes of a match. How does she do that?
Looks like she's been practicing both badminton and English. One of the most amazing matches I've ever witnessed.
Don't know how Okuhara and Sindhu are feeling after playing that match, but I had 2 heart attacks and a pulled hamstring just watching it! Truly an epic final.
I woke up my whole family on a Sunday morning and made them watch the epic finale of the final with me.
what a great match, well deserved nozomi, ever so humble. both played a brilliant match. and she is honest too, she told Gael Emms that she is very tired so that she can leave the court, I loved that, lovely personality.
Gail's last question was translated poorly to Nozomi, she asked something like "how do you feel" instead of the actual question "what do you have to say to your fans", which is why you got the "tired" answer.
But to be fair, she had already thanked her fans for the support in her first answer, so Gail should've skipped that question and asked something else. Okuhara played with fire and at the best level we've ever seen her play, taking down Marin, Nehwal and Sindhu. Now if TTY had played, that would've been very interesting...
