Badminton marathon: Kento Momota wins his 7th title in 2019
Kento Momota wins his 7th title of this year and takes revenge for the last year loss. It was a great match, which proved that badminton is one of the toughest sports, which requires having extra stamina for achieving great results. Here is a short report from Changzhou 2019 courts!
Kento Momota, two times world champion and #1 in the World for the moment, has played against the last year winner of the tournament, Indonesian star Anthony Ginting.
Since losing in the final of the last year tournament, Kento Momota won 5 of 5 matches against Anthony. But, all these matches were not an easy-walk for Kento. He had to work hard to get his victories, in the three games mainly.
Considering the road to this tournament final, Anthony Ginting played full distance in all 4 matches. So, we could suppose that it would be one more reason for Momota to play long rallies and go the whole distance again, as he did it in the semi-final match against Chen Long.
The beginning of the match has clearly shown the plan of Kento — to play his famous basic game at a high pace.
Anthony Ginting, as always, started aggressively, playing cross-court smashes, which had deadly accuracy. What was clearly seen is that Anthony is much quicker than Momota on the net.
Generally, the game was quite equal. When the score was 10:10, both players produced extra rally, where Anthony has shown his real speed and took a few “deadly” shots. After the break, both players continued producing the badminton of an extra quality but at the end of the game, Anthony had more luck and won it 21:19.
It took 29 minutes to define the winner of the first game.
The second game did not change the picture too much. Kento Momota kept the high pace and was playing long rallies, making his opponent working hard. 11:7–4 points advantage.
After the mid-interval, Anthony Ginting has turned on higher speed and started playing the aggressive game again, which has immediately brought the results — 12:12.
But, it was too energy-consuming for Indonesian. Clearly, he could not play such a game the whole distance. Momota constructed solid rallies, played with enough margin and speed to make Ginting producing mistakes. It was clear that Anthony is tired and he keeps energy for short explosions — 18:14 — and the 4 points margin was enough for Momota to close the second game of the match — 21:17.
Another 27 minutes of world-class badminton.
What was interesting before the third game is that if Anthony Ginting had enough energy to produce the game, which could bring him the needed result. That was a big question…
Kento Momota was also showing some signs of tiredness but he followed his plan.
The beginning of the third game has proved that Anthony was tired… After winning 2 points, Anthony has lost 8 rallies in a row and it cost him much to get back in the match … 11:8 to the lead of Momota.
Nothing new was happening after the mid-interval. Momota was going to get his 7th title. But, when the score became 19:16, Anthony Ginting has asked for doctor… and after 3 minutes break, he leveled the score to 19:19! Momota seemed a bit unbalanced.
That is the moment, which can be called as the moment of truth — where the champs prove their supremacy. Momota has managed to win the point and close the match — 21:19.
34 minutes for the third game and one and a half hour for the whole match, which proves that badminton players have the best stamina in the world!
This match will definitely be in my list of the top matches of 2019!
by Max Sydorenko for “This is Badminton” Blog,
22.09.2019
