The NBA has announced an update to the national team, ... with the following link: https://www.badminton.or.jp/national/member2018.html. While it is obvious that the "uniformed look" has changed, is there any change in the membership?
Smart choice by Unisys and San-In Godo Bank to send some of their players to the Finnish Open instead of the completely overrun Osaka Challenge. Many of the players and pairs who are ranked below a certain level can only play a handful of international tournaments per year. For MS, MD, and WD, only the best seven players/pairs have (close to) ten or more tournaments, after that it's very much single digits. The only exception is WS: ten players have played ten or more tournaments (#10 ranked player is Shiori Saito, who just won Orleans Masters). In that light, it is certainly wise to participate in tournaments in Europe, because the points are much easier to come by and you get the maximum out of the few tournaments you can play per year. As for the Osaka Challenge, hightlights that will hopefully be broadcasted include the potential second round between Baek Ha Na/Lee Yu Rim and Sayaka Hobara/Natsuki Sone, which would basically be the matchup between the most talented youngsters of their respective countries. Another interesting prospect is in XD. After countless weird and short-lived test pairs that the NBA has sent to tournaments in the last years, Shida/Kubota could be the real thing for the future.
I thought that Unisys was only sending Ebihara, and that the vast majority of players were being sent by San-in Godo Bank, followed by Tohoku Marks, and Nihon University. But as you mentioned, it will be far easier to pick up points in Finland than at the Osaka IC. Incidentally, it is interesting to note that the NBA has finally started to move with High School wunderkind Naraoka Kodai. Not only will he be fielded at the Osaka IC; he will also be sent to the Malaysia IC and New Zealand Open. On a variety of fronts, Japan has started to crank up the pace. The Tokyo Olympics are obviously serious business.
One year to go before the start of the Olympic qualification cycle. Seems a bit late for any newcomers to make their mark unless they do exceptionally well.
All Unisys players have now (meaning: a couple of hours ago they were still listed in tournamentsoftware) withdrawn. Hoshi, Nakanishi, Ebihara. All were designated to play singles, Hoshi/Nakanishi doubles as well. Strange indeed. Naraoka has been on the cards for quite a while I think, he was already in the B team in 2016 (http://www.badminton.or.jp/national/member2016.html ) and has played six pro tournaments in 2017 in addition to the WJC (team and singles). I think that is quite a bit for a 14/16 year old kid. Most important, of course, is that these two do well : Shitty draw in Osaka, alright-ish in China. Saishunkan!
Jinxed it, apparently. They had to retire in their first match at 1-4. Since Shida played XD later today, I assume it's Matsuyama who got injured. Depending on the severity of the injury, this could be a massive dent in their careers, since China Masters and the New Zealand/Australia tournaments are coming up, which surely are their best opportunity to climb up the ranks. Very sad. In what seems to be typical Japanese fashion, their club's twitter talks about every other game of their members, but acts like this one never happened - zero info. On a positive note, young Naraoka made it to the QF, as did Yukino Nakai and Ayumi Mine. There's also the Baek/Lee - Hobara/Sone matchup I hoped for. Did anybody manage to find a working stream or at least youtube channel where the games are uploaded?
Only JSports at the moment, I am afraid. That apart, the Osaka IC is incredibly "domestic". Of the eight MS quarterfinalists, seven are Japanese, as are all the WS. Looking at Masuda Keita's blog, he mentions that the overwhelming Japanese presence right from the start can be accounted for by the large number of lower-tier tournaments held during March and April. According to him, with so many tournaments to choose from, Japan loses out by virtue of being more expensive than other Asian venues. Naraoka did well. But what on earth happened to Takeshita Riichi? Why, after beating seed No. 1 Tien Minh Nguyen, did he lose to Onodera? At this rate, his stint as a National Team A member looks precarious. I can almost see him being kicked out after the next Ranking Circuit at the end of May.
Sixteen year-old Naraoka Kodai has advanced to the final of the men's singles at the Osaka IC. Tomorrow, he will be meeting defending champion and seed no. 2, Igarashi Yu.
He will certainly issue quite a challenge to other top Japanese players (*cough*) very soon. Shame he'll be going to Tonami (he will, won't he?) and not spar on a daily basis at a certain team in Tokyo. Love watching him play, he has a smootheness about his every move that's very cat-like and reminiscent of somebody else (*cough cough*). How awesome is Ayumi Mine, by the way? She's way too small to play this sport, yet she just made the final after beating Haruko Suzuki yesterday in 99 minutes and Minatsu Mitani today in 71. Absolute warrior. @kurako is there any news on Nami Matsuyama? It's really hard to get any information if you don't speak the language. I'm beginning to have a feeling that "bad" news is also something that is rather not reported in Japan, or very quietly at best. A few weeks ago, former director Akihiro Imai (why "former"?), coach Keiko Yoshitomi, player Riko Imai (relation?) and Miyuki Maeda all left Saishunkan and there has been absolutely zero official communication about it, just some sad tweets from the players. Totally weird, since Maeda especially is basically a legend of the Japanese game and of that club, so for her not to even receive some sort of mention regarding her retirement on the regularly updated club website seems really strange.
I have not read anything about Naraoka going to Tonami. As he is still a 2nd-year high school student, he (or more probably, his father) has another year to choose between various lucrative offers. However, as I expect Takeshita Riichi to be retiring around the time that Naraoka graduates, Tonami looks like an obvious choice. I am not particularly fond of that yellow uniform. I just looked at Mine Ayumi's profile, and noted that she originally comes from the same city that I currently live in!! She is an Aichi-prefecture native. Yep, at 1.52 m she is doing well. Has Maeda Miyuki really left Saishunkan? Her Twitter account updates continue to report on (or at least retweet) Saishunkan's performance at the Osaka IC (https://twitter.com/maedamijun). But, ... she does not feature on the team's website staff list. Imai Akihiro was apparently absolved of his position as coach as long ago as February 2017, which may explain the adjective "former". The reason given at the time was "company circumstances". Imai, as you will know, was responsible for coaching Maeda and her WD partner, which means, that if he has actually finally left the company, Maeda might, too, as might other protégées. Needless to say, "company circumstances" are never reported on, unless a real, uncontainable scandal is in the air. *Cough, cough, cough*. Sorry, I can't find anything on Matsuyama Nami. But, she is still on the team website, which is always a good sign.
Thanks a lot. Yeah, "company circumstances" my ass. They were very quick to basically erase all 4 people from the website, which is understandable for Imai if he actually was in conflict with the new leadership (as you say, he was replaced by Shintaro Ikeda's derpy brother over a year ago; apparently his contract ran out now). But Riko Imai was an active player until just now, is only 19 and Nao Ono is now without a doubles partner. Same with the coach and "sparring member" Maeda - they were still with the team on a daily basis and now it looks like they never existed. Fairly shitty move, regardless of the reasons. By the way, I'm fairly certain Shida/Kubota is the XD pair the NBA is going to promote alongside Higashino/Watanabe and will be featured in the 500+ tournaments as soon as they can qualify. Two reasons: 1. They are the most promising comination on paper: current world junior champion + one half of the most promising young wd designated front court and back court player respectively left and right hand combination Shida already made the final of the All Japan with Yugo Kobayashi last december 2. They also did well on court and to made the final in Osaka, their first tournament together. Jeremy Gan as the "A" team XD representative is here, as are all the XD pairs that were specifically added to the "B" team recently: Kurihara/Gondo (lost in the first round), Shinoya/Mitsuhashi (lost in the semi final) and Urai/Miyaura (lost the other semi final directly to Shida/Kubota). I wouldn't regard them as favourites against the Korean youngins tomorrow, but they've shown their mettle already. I will eat my hat if they don't appear together quite a bit in the future.
To be honest, I have not seen much of her in action, so I cannot comment, but on the ever-friendly yahoo opinion site, there was a remark today to the effect that Shida does not show her opponents enough respect?? This apparently has something to do with the way she returns the shuttlecock to her opponent after losing a point. Does she seem abrasive? Now that would be a very untypical trait.
I did not realise at all that Imai Akihiro, Yoshitomi, and Maeda were all affiliated to Renesas Badminton Club until the end of March 2015. Due to financial problems, this electronics company underwent restructuring and relinquished its badminton team to Saishunkan. Amalgamations are always difficult. I don't think that the three of them will have ever felt that they were part of the company. The situation with Imai Riko is odd. She played in the Austrian Open with Ono Nao in February, and was entered for both the Osaka IC and the Lingshui China Masters scheduled for next week... both of them now no-shows. Hmmm, a bloodbath at Saishunkan.
In hindsight, the departure of Fukuman/Yonao last summer, who were also former Renesas players, looks quite different. It will be interesting to see if they go for another partner for Ono (would be worth it, imo, since she has always been considerably better than Imai), draft an entirely new pair, or if they continue with Fujii/Kakiiwa as the third pair, who are so over the hill, it's not funny any more. As for Shida...I haven't seen any of the Osaka games (obviously) but I'm fairly picky when it comes to on court behaviour. She is someone who returns the shuttle straight to opponents rather than in their general direction or even intentionally away from them Marin style. Maybe she does that abrasively - "here's your shuttle, bitch!".
I watched the XD final yesterday; it happened to take place just before the MS encounter between Naraoka and Igarashi, which I was intent on watching. Shida did not look particularly "disprespectful", ... however, she did look outplayed by her Korean counterpart. It was obvious that Kubota and Shida had only paired up recently; they lacked aggressiveness and appeared indecisive/out of synch at times. Give them some more experience together, and you never know, though. Naraoka versus Igarashi was also more one-sided than I anticipated, with Naraoka unable to handle the variety of shots or to read the strategy of Igarashi's rather pacy game. Once Igarashi loosened up from G2 onwards, Naraoka simply had no answers. I switched off after the MS, and ventured off to something more stimulating, ...yoga.
I had double checked it, nothing changed in the team member, as you said there are updates in their photos and all players & coaches are using jacket uniform now, including Jeremy Gan. I notice all images are using new folder name "/img_2018_04/" instead of the older name "/img_2018/". So, the last changes ware in 2017.12.22 with the additional 6 players (Team B : Men=3 Women=3) as it was posted at Post #203.
On the Nihon Unisys badminton URL update of April 3, there is a message congratulating Takahashi Sayaka on becoming a national team member (https://www.unisys.co.jp/com/sponsors/badminton/news/2018japan3.html). She is on the National Team B list, but is not sporting the zipped-up look, which suggests that she may be a new addition. I did not keep a record of the national team members that were announced in January 2018. Although Takahashi Sayaka was definitely a National B Team member in 2017, I am not sure whether she was included on the list published at the beginning of this year. If I were a little less lazy, I could probably find the information though. Incidentally, as the update states, Nihon Unisys now has 15 national team members. What a powerhouse!!
Ah, I missed that one. Yeah, you're correct. There is additional 1 player after I've just rechecked it again. Women's Players in Team B become 17 players with 6 WS players after Sayaka Takahashi rejoining Team B. The previous list could be checked at https://www.badminton.or.jp/national/2018/2018_national_member_1222.pdf The first and original at https://www.badminton.or.jp/national/2018/2018_national_member.pdf. And the last updated one here : https://www.badminton.or.jp/national/2018/2018_national_member_0401.pdf
