Vision is ash Reaction is ash Reflex is ash Speed is ash Power is ash Accuracy/Shot Quality is ash Shot placement is ash Stamina during sustained rallies is ash Stability during rallies is ash Average speed during sustained rallies is ash Footwork is ash Error free game is ash Judgement is ash Strategy is ash Defense is ash Nakanishi is ash PJB is ash Actually replace all the h in ash by s. I don't recognise this player. I refuse to believe this is Momota. This must be a body double. I repeat this is NOT Momota. The dude was being fooking humiliated by LzJ yet not a single word was uttered by the fooking Nakanishi. Body refreshing? Shut the f up. I understand if Momota cannot see or cannot react as well as before given his accident and eye surgery. But don't try to tell that he cannot maintain a rally like before!!! Forget accuracy and shot quality and shot placement because those stuff are complicated and sometimes talent driven. But wtf happen to the stamina that he had? The stamina where he used to tire other players by rallying for 40+ like nothing and then even had reserve to switch gears? Why can't he do that now? What kind of reason will they invent? Is that the result of the body refreshing? Does the body of LzJ look like a refreshed body to you? Look either something is going horribly wrong in the coaching department (which to me is the most plausible reason) or Momota has been severely affected by something recent we all had to go through and which we all know at this stage isn't something that what it seemed to be (not gonna get into this argument) or he is no longer the same since the accident (well I accept if it was his vision and reaction time but the lack of stamina for rallies make this one fall off).
to those who are doubting momota, '' success is never final, failure is never fatal " once momota gets married to the love of his life, you would see peak momota once again.
If I knew even one ounce of Japanese language, and knew what Momota's social media handle was. I would convey the following message to him. ''Lin Dan after 8 consecutive first round losses in 2018 thrashed CTC(9 match points down in the first round,11-20 trailing in the second set after losing the first one), Tsuneyama, Shi Yuqi and then Chen Long(21-8 in the final). You never know when it will click. But once it clicks, it takes off like a rocket''
Taking coaching decisions aside, I really think it is a combination of the car crash, lockdown, lack of tournaments, getting covid, possibly still suffering from long covid, home pressure during the Olympics, and just overall mental fears that creep up every now and then. It's the total combination of mental and physical impairment he has to be suffering from that is causing these up and down performances. Momota, once the glorious king he was, and even when he had fallen from grace due to illegal gambling and showed the world on his way up to dominance how good and fit he was, has now in my personal opinion, fallen hard from that grace. He has neither the career consistency and longevity of Lee Chong Wei nor the coveted accolades of Lin Dan. My thinking is that Momota will sink to become another better than average MS player for Japan, but will soon be (or has already been) surpassed by his compatriots. The team and tournament decisions that revolve around Momota will cease to occur and Team Japan will likely begin to re-assess their MS priorities. There was a Chinese film crew following Lin Dan during his last Olympic qualification run. It was his last fight I believe. Can't find it on Youtube, but in the movie, it showed a lot of first round disappointing exits. He got close, but ultimately, Lin Dan never made it to Team China for the 2020 (2021) Olympics. My thoughts are that this is going to be Momota's future trajectory. Definitely an unfortunate series of events. The difference is that Lin Dan had already achieved everything by the time he was mid 30s and retired.
You might as well add to the combination of factors the deletion of Momota’s thread on this forum… I mean the reason might be as simple as other players got better than him.
If seeing this in the game of my absolute favorite badminton player of all time and knowing he can do much much better and reacting like this makes me toxic. Then toxic I am. Thank you for taking the time to type it in for me
Come on stop. Every player got better than him? Look - he won his match the day before right. But I already knew he would freaking lose against LZJ. He never stood a chance of challenging him. He can't even maintain rallies now he slows down. Anyway this is my first and last attempt to argue. You know what you are right. Others got better than him.
There is a possibility we might see another Momota's attempt to 'do better'. So I'm guessing we will see a Momota winning the first game but then second and third will be won by CTC. Momota will not be able to retrieve CTC's crosscourt half smashes. And this will change the match.