Yeah...has come to. After being used for serial killers, obsessive social outcasts and people who wear stylized girls uniforms in combination with cat tails.
Here's the latest update of scores in the S/J League after the fourth day of action. NB. Some teams have played three games, whilst others have still only played two.
1st and 2nd in the women’s aren’t exactly a surprise, but I’ve not heard much about Hokuto before. Edit: Tanaka/Yonemoto + Kawakami with Nagahara/Marsumoto as backup actually makes a strong setup. Might not be enough for the top teams though.
Don't forget the modus. It's two doubles and one singles match in a best of three. Hokuto have arguably the best one-two doubles combination since Fukuman/Yonao left Saishunkan for Yonex this summer. And Saena can beat anybody on her day, too (as can be seen here: - match point and injury drama included). I reckon it will be incredibly close this season, and Hokuto could well turn out being champions.
This is from the All Japan 2016, so slightly over a year ago. I posted this just to showcase her potential. She was up 21-10 and 20-19 against AY when the latter needed a little injury break and turned the match around after that.
In the first set-up against ACT SAIKYO (November 5) the order of play was: WD1: Yonemoto/Tanaka (2-0) WS: Kawakami (2-0) WD2: Matsumoto/Nagahara (2-1) In set-up 2 against NTT-East (December 23), the WD order was reversed to: WD1: Matsumoto/Nagahara (2-1) WS: Kawakami (2-0) WD2: Yonemoto/Tanaka (2-0) As the third match has to be played (irrespective of the results of the first two matches), there is no "back-up" as such. That having been said, choosing whether to have a certain pair play the first or the third match is an important part of the strategy.
The tiny Japanese contingent at the Thailand Masters has been doing very well so far. World Junior Champions Mahiro Kaneko and Yunosuke Kubota (97 WR) have made it to the QF by beating #5 seed Kedren/Puavaranukroh (24 WR) 21-17, 12-21, 21-18 in the first and Canadian duo Ho-Shue/Yakura (60 WR) 21-17, 21-16 in the second round. Up next are #1 seeds Angriawan/Hardianto. Hashiru Shimono (124 WR) has gone through two rounds of qualifying against Chirag Sen and Mithun Manjunath, to beat Dionysius Rumbaka (226 WR) 21-18, 13-21, 15-7 in the first round. He is now up for the second round match against Misha Zilberman (57 WR) of Israel. Natsuki Nidaira (64 WR) has beaten Dinar Ayustine (36 WR) 21-10, 22-20 in the first round and is now playing Pattarasuda Chaiwan (125 WR) in the second (one game all). And, most importantly, the awesome Natsumi Shimoda (155 WR) has beaten Lyanny Mainaky (66 WR) 14-21, 21-11, 21-8 and #5 seed Yip Pui Yin (30 WR) 14-21, 21-13, 21-17 in the second round. Next up: #4 seed Soniia Cheah
It took me like 3 minutes to realized that TS is Tommy Sugiarto instead of Tanongsak hahahahhaaaa Was extremely confused because Tanongsak lost today already lol
How about Tanongsak meet Tommy? TS vs TS at TS website. Anyone have information about the coach who accompanied Mahiro Kaneko & Yunosuke Kubota? I wonder if Rionny Mainaky was the one since Lyanny and Yehezkiel Mainaky are also playing at Thailand Masters.
The accompanying coaches for the delegation taken as a whole are Ohori Hitoshi (Tonami Transportation coach) and Watanabe Tetsuyoshi (owner of Tricky Panders) (https://www.badminton.or.jp/news/2017/20180109_thai_masters_player.pdf). The players are taking part on a self-financed basis; hence, there are no national coaches present. Ohori's presence can be accounted for by the fact that Shimono and Nidaira are Tonami-employed players, and Kaneko/Kubota will be joining Tonami (what a power-house!) from this April, after graduating from high school. And, originally, Ohori Aya (Tonami) and Tsuneyama Kanta (Tonami) were also scheduled to play in the tournament. Tricky Panders fielded Matsuda/Araki (WD), but they withdrew by the time of the 4th M & Q report. Accordingly, I am not sure whether Watanabe actually flew over to Thailand. All the match reports are being submitted by Ohori.
Mahiro Kaneko/Yunosuke Kubota (Futaba Mirai Gakuen High School) will be the third MD at Tonami after Keigo Sonoda/Takeshi Kamura and Takuro Hoki/Yugo Kobayashi. Kaneko/Kubota are seeking their strong team after their high school graduation. Tonami are likely their first option instead of Unisys. Maybe Tonami is just going to be the most popular team nowdays and their players begin to have dominance within the national team.
Are you sure you're not mistaking them for somebody else? As far as I know they're still in high school (which makes sense, given that they've both just recently turned 18), but Tonami have already snatched them up for the future: https://www.sj-league.jp/assets/pdf/2017/men/M17-P01.pdf It makes perfect sense for the two, having the #1 and #3 pair in Japan to train with, plus Ohori, Keita Masuda and Tony Gunawan as team coaches. Unisys might not be champs for a long time again.
Yup, missed quoted from my notes. 岡村 洋輝/小野寺 雅之 (日本ユニシス/早稲田大学) Hiroki Okamura/Masayuki Onodera (Unisys/Waseda University) 金子 真大/久保田 友之祐 (ふたば未来学園高校) Mahiro Kaneko/Yunosuke Kubota (Futaba Mirai Gakuen High School)
Just wondering if it is better to have a separate thread on results and this thread more for the specific developments in Japan badminton that the results contribute to. We did the same for Malaysia BAM thread and India badminton and split the results off because all the interesting background information like organisation, decision making process etc got drowned in posts purely giving results
Here are the results after day 6 of the S/J League. Today's biggest surprise was probably Hokuto Bank's 2-1 defeat of Saishunkan in the women's division. Once again, please note that some teams have already played four matches, whereas others, only three.
