Another "Saina"? How is it pronounced? More news about this upcoming player please. PS: If duplicated, please delete.
The woman on Google Translate (oops, I guess the URL doesn't put the '川上 紗恵奈' into the box) seems to put an 'eh' sound in the middle so it's more like 'sa-eh-na' than 'sa-ee-na' but I don't speak the language of either player.
She just won in Taipei and in Canada. She beat Chen Yufei in April and barely lost to Ohori in the final. Surprised that no one posted anything about her since Mar 2016!? To me, she and Sayaka Sato are the third best player behind Yamaguchi and Okuhara in Japanese WS.
I think Aya Ohori is just like Sayaka Takahashi - they both have good skill but lack mental strength and will lose patient easily.
Wed 8/2/2017 1:55 PM WS XIE Yongshi - Saena KAWAKAMI [5] 12-21 3-21 Export Calendar 0:25 NSEC - 1 Thu 8/3/2017 7:35 PM WS HAN Yue - Saena KAWAKAMI [5] 14-21 11-21 Export Calendar 0:30 NSEC - 1 Fri 8/4/2017 6:00 PM WS Saena KAWAKAMI [5] - Yaxin WEI Looking pretty good for her in Zealand as well.
No offence but I don't really consider Sayaka Takahashi or Aya Ohori or even Minatsu Mitani as "skillful" (technically atleast) , they are more like physically extra fit ladies who can grind their opponent, and that's it. Infact they fail to finish off the rally more often than not, when one should easily, at this level. But, I guess that's the women's approach towards the game in Japan is. More physical, like China, or Korea or India. Unlike Thailand or TPE or Indonesia. Sayaka Sato, or Saena Kawakami (now) infact the young Haruko Suzuki looks better prospect. About time when these fresh legs along with the resurgent Sato will have a tug of war for #3 in what looks the healthiest pool of players (in any discipline). Japan is just on fire. When Nozomi was injured in Malaysia open, and wasn't very accomplished, Sato was injured and out, they had only Yamaguchi and flashes of relief from Minatsu and Yui Hashimoto. And now, we see Japanese flag more than any nation in any tourney. Great grassroot level training and great structure of coaching and selection.
I think it's a left handed thing. I'm a left handed myself and my coach said the exact same thing to me and I noticed some international (left handed) players also suffer from this in their earlier badminton career.
Unfortunately, she's got horrific draws for Korea (Tai Tzu Ying) and Japan (Sung Ji Hyun). Pretty hard to stomache given her fantastic achievements in recent months, her potential and the fact that some weaker players got rather lucky in comparison.
