Tomorrow's line-up: MS Momota Kento (NTT-East) v Watanabe Koki (BIPROGY) WS Sugiyama Kaoru (BIPROGY) v Okuhara Nozomi (Taiyo Holdings) MD Yamada/Shibata (NTT-East) v Koga/Saito (NTT-East) WD Ishikawa/Konegawa (NTT-East) v Sakuramoto/Miyaura (YONEX) XD Yamashita/Shinoya (NTT-East) v Midorikawa (NTT-East)/Saito (ACT Saikyo) ----- NTT-East is looking well-represented.
So Miyazaki lost to Amano Yoshikawa, right? any info about Yoshikawa? I don't see any international results from her. Is she in any national team?
Yoshikawa plays for Marusugi, the corporate team that employs Fukushima/Hirota. She is not a national team player, but is still only 19.
Hi lurker, I signed up with FOD for live streaming for 200 yen. And replays here: https://fod.fujitv.co.jp/title/00g0/
Adding to what Kurako already said, Yoshikawa Sorano was the high school champion last year and also won the bronze in WS at last year's World Junior. Incidentally, the person who prevented her from advancing to the final in the WJC was none other than Miyazaki. The h2h after this week is 2-1 in Miyazaki's favor.
Ishikawa/Konegawa only just graduated from high school this past March, but they fully took advantage of the withdrawals to pretty much book a place on the national team. With this, the Otake/Takahashi pair might just get left out again. The Saishunkan pair of Kato/Hirokami will need to do some serious soul searching. They can't win against any decent domestic pair and the only thing keeping them on the national team is their ranking, which is already dropping compared to last year. Keep this up and they will get replaced very soon. Japan has no shortage of WD talents graduating from junior.
Kato/Hirokami are not good at all, in my opinion, and no soul searching is going to improve that. Replacing them is a must for both the NT and Saishunkan. For all their investment in badminton, Saishunkan really haven't done one good bit of recruiting since Yamaguchi/Shidamatsu. That being said, Japan has not produced a single good youngster in either WD or WS since then, which is crazy as well. How long has it been since those three joined Saishunkan? 6 years? An awfully long time for an A-Tier badminton country to not produce any top players.
Harsh as always when it comes to Saishunkan aren't you ? I agree that there hasn't been any good WD players coming up for the past five years or so and this is reflected in past WJC results; however, the past two years have produced a few World Junior medalists so things are looking better. We can only hope that the corporate teams don't mess things up with their recruitment. As for WS, Miyazaki is currently doing very well for her age don't you think? Looking at the younger juniors, I think there are a few that we could keep an eye on. Just from this week's qualification round results, Anami Meisa (middle school 3rd year) and Shirakawa Nayu (HS 1st year) seem to have potential.
NO is getting back..watched few points..CM almost ready.. Both AY & RI are returning back.. PV Sindhu?... alongwith TTY To challenge ASY & CYF in 2024.. Among these, wish RI should get medal in Paris..Her 2013 gold, top most among other factors like Saina, Tina baun, inspired many to dream big..to get belief to break mighty THE WALL.
Japan's National Team 2024 is expected to be announced tomorrow. Actually, usually the announcement is made soon after the All Japan Championships; this year, I am not quite sure why the NBA decided to wait until January 25. Maybe they wanted to get a glimpse of early 2024 performances; I am not sure.
It is announced! @kurako, please do the honor! I must say that I am a little surprised at some of the inclusions/exclusions. Spoilers: -Momota stays on Team A -Miyazaki got promoted to Team A
Drum roll.... Here is the link of the press release: https://www.badminton.or.jp/press_release/docs/nationalMember_20240125.pdf And, for easier viewing, the mugshots of the team are available at https://www.badminton.or.jp/national/member/2024.html A Team MS: Naraoka Kodai Nishimoto Kenta Momota Kento Tsuneyama Kanta WS: Yamaguchi Akane Ohori Aya Okuhara Nozomi Miyazaki Tomoka (New) Out: Gunji Riko MD: Hoki/Kobayashi Koga/Saito Okumura/Mitsuhashi (New) Out: Takeuchi/Matsui, Takei/Endo WD: Fukushima/Hirota Shida/Matsuyama Sakuramoto/Miyaura Nagahara/Matsumoto XD: Watanabe/Higashino Midorikawa/Saito Kaneko/Matsutomo Yamashita/Shinoya All-in-all, with the exception of Miyazaki, totally expected and totally uninspired. I have no idea why we had to wait so long for this announcement to materialise. Incidentally, the NBA top-dog has set a goal of five medals at the Paris Olympics. Where, on earth, are these are going to come from? And yes, just in case you are wondering, PJB has remained in his post as head coach ... for the 20th year. ....
