News

Match Reports
19th September, 2017

Metlife BWF WORLD SUPERSERIES DAIHATSU YONEX OPEN 2017 has started today at the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium on the beautiful day in the center of Capital Tokyo just after the Typhoon # 18 passed across Japan yesterday.

In accordance with the message of Mr. Poul-Eric-Hoyer, BWF President, "As the Tokyo 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games loom on the horizon, there will be more attention than ever on this tournament", many spectators will be expected to come to the venue from the qualified rounds today to the finals on Sunday.

Since the Victor Korean Open held in Seoul last week, all the players now more focus on qualifying for Dubai World Superseries in December on coming 4 months.

This tournament is the first appearance for Viktor Axelsen as Men's Singles World Champion, while Women's Singles World Champion, Okuhara, will be expected by Japanese fans to take this Japan Open title, though at the finals of Korean Open last Sunday she was revenged by Indian, Pusarla V. Sindhu, runner-up of World Championship.

In addition to Axelsen and Okuhara , almost all the medalists in Rio Olympic including Lee Chong Wei (MS), Carolina Marin (WS), Sindhu (WS), and Takahashi & Matsutomo (WD) and the other top-ranked players like Lin Dan (MS)and Kamura & Sonoda (MD) will compete the title of 5 events throughout the week.

Please visit here and enjoy watching the shuttlers from all over the world.

The qualified match of 5 events and partly the main draw of XD were held on Sep/19.

Among the XD Participants, the 3rd. seeded Mr.& Mrs Adcock was unexpectedly defeated by Taiwanese duo of Lee Yang and Hsu Ya Ching, but top seeded Lu Kai & Huang Yaqiong and Japanese Kenta Kazuno & Ayane Kurihara safely advanced to the second round.

For your reference, the qualifiers to the main draw who will play tomorrow are as follows

MS
Kenta Nishimoto(JPN)
Yu Igarashi(JPN)
Lee Dong Keun(KOR)
Khosit Phetpradab(THA)
WS
Mia Blichfeldt(DEN)
Kim Hyo Min(KOR)
Michelle Li(CAN)
Haruko Suzuki(JPN)
MD
Kim Won Ho & Seung Jae Seo(KOR)
Lee Sheng Mu & Lin Chia Yu(TPE)
Satwilksairaj Rankireddy & Chirag Shetty(IND)
Supak Jomkoh & Pakin Kuna-Anuvit(THA)
WD
Asumi Kugo & Megumi Yokoyama(JPN)
Miki Kashihara & Miyuki Kato(JPN)
Kim Ha Na & Hee Yong Kong(KOR)
Nami Matsuyama & Chiharu Shida(JPN)
XD
Yuki Kaneko & Koharu Yonemoto(JPN)
Takuro Hoki & Sayaka Hirota(JPN)
Satwilksairaj Rankireddy & Ashwini Ponnappa(IND)
Han Chengkai & Du Yue(CHN)

QMS-2
Kenta Nishimoto (JPN) 2 (21-14, 21-23, 21-14) 1 Suppanyu Avihingsanon(THA)

Japanese, Nishimoto defeated Thai, Suppanyu at the first round of qualifications in 66 minutes, and advanced to the second round.

In the first game, Nishimoto played very calmly and earned 5 consecutive point from 7-4 to 11-4 at the interval. On the other hand, Suppanyu made some unforced errors. Nishimoto reacted quickly for the opponent's feint with smoothly footwork, and he earned 5 consecutive points again, and got the first game by 21-14.

Suppanyu recovered his pace in the second game. The seesawed game went on to the end of this game. Nishimoto had a big chance to finish the match at 20-17 lead. However, Suppanyu prevented Japanese from finishing the match three times and got into deuce. Suppanyu gained momentum as his ally, and Thai caught up with Japanese by taking of second game by 23-21.

Nishimoto lost points by his unforced errors, and the opponent played aggressively in the beginning of final game. Japanese changed to be more patient. The changes effected well for Nishimoto, and he earned 5 consecutive points, from 7-9 to 12-9, and 4 consecutive points, from 12-10 to 16-10. Finally, Nishimoto won the match at 21-14 in 66 minutes.

QMS5
Kazuomasa Sakai (JPN) 2 (16-21, 22-20, 21-15) 1 Lin Yu Hsien (TPE)

Sakai, one of the men representative for Japan and #40 BWF ranked player, competed to Taiwanese Lin Yu Hsien, #43 BWF Ranked at 1st round of Men's singles qualified match.

In the beginning of the first game, Sakai did not concentrate and repeated the unforced errors. He easily gave the points to Taiwanese to 11-3. After the interval, Sakai turned to be a bit offensive and thanks to some unforced errors by Lin, he once almost caught up. However, the reversed cross smashes were effective to increase the score for Lin and he widened the lead by 18-13 and Taiwanese got the game by 21-16.

In the second game, Sakai invited Lin to the front court and made the net shots repeatedly, while Lin hit the controlled cross/reversed cross smashes to the corners. At the interval, Lin again led by 11-9. After then, both players were patient to return the shuttle each other and the score moved from 13-9, 14-11, 15-12, 16-13, 17-16,19-18 and Lin took the match point by 20-19. But Sakai was so brave to repeat the net and smash hit again and finally reversed the game by 22-20.

The final game developed almost similarly and Lin led by 11-9 at the interval, but Taiwanese seemed to be more exhausted than Sakai. After then, Lin made the unforced errors and Sakai reversed the score by 14-11. The fine feint shot pushed Lin back to the right rear court to make the score by 17-12 led by Sakai. Eventually Sakai took the game by 21-15.After the game he said that the patience was very important to compete against the high ranked players and hope to beat one more to advance the main draw.

Nevertheless, in the second round, Sakai could not show his capability through the match with Korean Lee Dong Keun. Sakai tried to be patient as he mentioned, but it diminished his offensive power, thus he was much sensitive to return the shuttle which caused the unforced errors. Sakai was defeated by 8-21- and 10-21 and lost the chance to advance to the main draw.

QWS6
Natsuki Nidaira(JPN) 2 (16-21, 22-20, 21-15) 1 Natalia Koch Rohde (DEN)

In this match, Nidaira, who won the title in the Japan Ranking Circuit 2017, remained in draw by her strong mentality and concentration and beat Koch in a close game.

In the first game, Nidaira suffered the steep smashes or drop shots hit by the 180cm tall Koch. The first game was Koch's for the taking with the score 16-21. However when the second game started, the game became seesaw. Both players never let the opponents earn more than two points till end of the 2nd game and no one could expect who would win. Although Nidaira lost the first game, she continued her aggressive offense not being afraid of making errors. Both players showed excellent concentration, delivered fierce attacking shots making the game so breathtaking and Nidaira survived a second game point with 22-20. The final game became seesaw until the first half, however when the game score reached 12-12, Nidaira breached the wall and earned points patiently to 15-12, 17-13, and closed the game 21-15.

In the second round, Nidaira played patiently against Michelle Li of Canada, but Li exceeded Nidaira both in techniques and power. Nidaira lost the match and was unable to proceed to the main draw.

QWS8
Haruko Suzuki(JPN) 2 (21-23, 21-9, 21-4) 1 Yip Pui Yin(HKG)

Suzuki beat Yip, after losing very close 1st game, taking easily next 2 games.

1st game proceeded seesaw game. Yip got 7 consecutive points from 13-15 to 19-15, while, Suzuki took back 6 consecutive points up to 20 game point to19, where she seemed to win the 1st game. Yip played very persistently after that and closed game 23-21.

However, Yip seemed to have exhausted all her energy through this hard play in 1st game, and could not follow up Suzuki's various attacking shots and placement of shuttle, resulting to make many unforced errors, from the first stage of 2nd game onward.

Suzuki overwhelmed Yip through the final game winning at 21-4.

QWD6
Kim Ha Na & Hee Yong Kong (KOR) 2 (21-15, 21-13) 0 Akane Araki & Aoi Matsuda (JPN)

Korean duo easily won and proceeded to the 2nd round of the qualification.

Kim Ha Na who used to be the top ranked WD & XD player challenged WD in this tournament paired with younger Hee Yong Kong.

The well experienced player, Kim Ha Na was stable and dominant the game and younger partner, Hee Yong Kong, took advantage to hit the killer shots to Japanese. Young Japanese duo was not able to resist almost all the way both in the 1st. and 2nd.game.Korean kept leading throughput the match. They will compete with Chinese Huang Yaqiong & Yu Xiaohan who took the title of Korean Open WD last Sunday.

QWD 11
Kim Ha Na & Hee Yong Kong(KOR) 2 (13-21, 21-19, 21-16) 1 Huang Yaqiong & Yu Xiaochan(CHN)

This match was remarkable in the qualifying round as both pairs are led by the leading mixed doubles players, Kim Ha Na and Huang Yaqiong. Spectators could enjoy the excellent defense techniques and rallies consist of various soft and quick shots featured by the top mixed doubles players' performance.

First game started with slow speed rallies as if it is a game to warm them up. Instead of fierce attacking shots, they rather delivered drop and net shots or high clears whose soft performances are worth watching.
First game became a bit on- sided and Huang/ Yu easily won the game 21-13.

As second game started, both pairs accelerated their pace and started fierce attacking play. Same as the mixed doubles, Kim and Huang mainly played in the front court and Hee and Yu attacked from the rear court. Although Huang/Yu continuously led the game until 17-15, Kim/Hee patiently chased up, and after catching Huang/Yu up at 18-18, they reversed the situation in favor of them and closed the game 21-19.

In the final game, Kim/Hee changed their formation, Kim aggressively attacked from the rear court and Hee played in the front court. This strategic change was effective to create openings in the game and Kim/Hee always led off till end.

QXD-3
Takuro Hoki & Sayaka Hirota(JPN) 2 (21-11, 21-8) 0 Yehezkiel Fritz Mainaky & Lyanny Alessandra Mainaky（INA）

Hoki/Hirota, newly formed pair from Australian Open 2017, played well in good combination and beat Indonesian Mainaky/Mainaky in straight games. Although Mainaky/Mainaky tried to create openings to earn points, they had to play defensively all through the game.

QXD9
Yuki Kaneko & Koharu Yonemoto(JPN) 2 (21-19, 16-21, 21-13) 1 Vladimir Ivanov & Ekaterina Bolotova(RUS)

Japanese pair made a victory to the main draw tomorrow.

In the first game, both pairs shot fast-low drive each other, and they couldn't get big lead. Russian pair earned 4 consecutive points from 14-15 to 18-15, but Japanese pair took back 5 consecutive points from 15-18 to 20-15 right away. Japanese pair took the first game by 21-19.

Japanese pair seemed to lose their concentration in the second game. Powerful smashes by Ivanov attacked Japanese pair, and Russian got the second game.

However, Japanese pair revived their concentration in the final game. Kaneko's fierce smash together with good combination of Yonemoto's quick push forced the opponents in the rear court. Finally, Japanese pair easily won the match by 21-13.

XD2
Yugo Kobayashi & Misaki Matsutomo (JPN) 2 (21-15, 19-21, 21-16) 1 Jae Hwan Kim & Lee So Hee(KOR)

1st game, Matsutomo's service was basically stable and her net play was also precious enough forcing Korean pair to make lob-shot not sufficiently reaching to back court area.

Kobayashi made effectively strong smashes of those lob-shots and got 6 consecutive points to their leading to 13-6 and closed the game 21-15.

2nd game went similarly till their 9-4. However, Korean pair could catch up with Japanese pace, and started attacking Matsutomo with pushing her short service, letting her to shoot the shuttle at back court area. Korea caught up to 16-17, when Kobayashi made 2 consecutive mistakes for rather easy shuttle to smash. Korea reversed the game to their 19-17 and finished game 21-19 rejecting Japan's efforts to regain the game.

The final game, started almost same as previous 2 games, namely Japan kept leading to 13-7, 16-10. Although Japanese pair made some unforced errors giving points to opponents, but with safety margin of 6 points they finished match 21-16 finally.

Matsutomo said she enjoyed this game and could get certain confidence in XD play of herself.

Kobayashi felt a little tension unable to lose the match, pairing with RIO Olympics gold medalist.

So far he will play much better tomorrow onward aiming best four position or better.