At least Gunji Riko offers some hope. I don't think that any boys singles managed to make it to the best sixteen in the 2019 World Junior Championships, apparently the first time that has happened in fifteen years.
Hmm, Naraoka didn't participate in WJC this year. Had he participated in this WJC, the JPN Boys Singles won't have to lose face like this. NBA really should realize this.
Yep, the NBA was fortunate that Gunji won the gold, and thus managed to deflect attention from this debacle.
Just check the M&Q for Gwangju Korea Masters. As far as team A is concerned, most of the players are scheduled to participate there. Only KM and NO are absent. This time, the JPN top players are trying to collect as much points as possible both in Race to Guangzhou (WTF) and Tokyo (OG). However, the All Japanese championships is near that period. It will be very taxing if they participate in Korea Masters.
That is interesting. On the NBA website, currently only Sakai and the upper half of National Team B are scheduled to go. However, the list of "independently-financed" players has not been posted yet. Judging by the above, National Team A (minus Momota and Okuhara) will not be despatched by the NBA, but will be participating independently. Accordingly, at the tournament they will be coached by their corporate team coaches, and not by NBA coaches.
I've never seen him play before, but that was not good at all. Ajay yesterday simply had a really bad game, as he put so many shots wide, especially with the backhand. Overall he was still much better than Sen today. I really wonder how he got through to the semi. Maybe a slight injury that hampered him today?
Ajay is past his prime. I didn't expect him to go to three games. I've seen Chirag Sen play against his younger brother Lakshya in PBL this year. Chirag was promising in his junior days but faded when he reached senior level. Don't know about injury, it's simple Kodai was a much better player today. Watched glimpses of yesterday's match against Ajay. Kodai movement is so flawless and his shot quality and deceptions too. A very exciting prospect for Japan. I'm very much looking forward to see more of Kunlavut, Lakshya and Kodai in senior level.
The lower end of National Team B, as well as some independently-financed players, are now competing at the CAFFINO Indonesia International Challenge (October 22 - 27) Yesterday witnessed the qualification rounds and R1 one of the MS, with the following MS players progressing to R2. Shimono Hashiru [11], Omoto Daisuke [Q], and Omoto Shota. (Koga Minoru [4], Obayashi Takuma [12], Watanabe Dai, and Baba Yusei [Q] lost their respective matches.) R2 of the MS and R1 of the other disciplines are being played today.
No, they did this exact same thing at Saishunkan and while Shida had 17 hits (I think) both Matsuyama and Yamaguchi had all 20. Ohori had 15, Kamura 19, Sonoda 20. As the old saying goes, "Tonami ain't ****."
This may be a good replacement with the BWF top committed player rule. But, I think that the players should be able to upload to any social media they prefer. IG may be a good source, a lot of them use it as well.