Kento and Okuhara lead Japan into two semis

Winning point: Japan’s Nozomi Okuhara returns a shot to Taiwan’s Hsu Wen-chi during their women’s singles quarter-final match. — AP

TWO-TIME world champion Kento Momota and Nozomi Okuhara came alive in the quarter-finals to lead Japan to the semi-finals of the Thomas and Uber Cup Finals respectively.

Momota finally defeated a top 10 player after a long drought, beating world No. 4 Chou Tien-chen 21-18, 21-13 in 51 minutes to give Japan the first point against Taiwan.

Taiwan, however, fought back valiantly before going down 2-3.

They fought back to win the next two points through Lee Yang-Wang Chi-lin and Wang Tzu-wei, who defeated Takuro Hoki-Yugo Kobayashi 21-14, 21-15 and Kanta Tsuneyama 22-20, 21-17 respectively.

Akira Koga-Yuta Watanabe had to toil for their 24-22, 21-14 win against Lu Ching-yao-Yang Po-han while Kenta Nishimoto also had to go the distance to beat Liao Jhuo-fu 21-13, 21-11.

The 26-year-old Momota was happy to see Japan into their sixth semi-finals. They will play the winners of the tie between top seeds and defending champions Indonesia and China.

“It’s good to finally win, I played much better,” said Momota, who played as the second singles in the team that lifted the Cup in 2014.

Okuhara, the 2017 world champion who was forced to retire from the Asian Championships first round in Manila two weeks ago, delivered the winning point against Hsu Wen-chi 15-21, 21-13, 21-9 in Japan’s 3-0 win that saw them into their seventh Uber Cup semi-finals.

The other points came from Akane Yamaguchi and Yuki Fukushima-Sayaka Hirota.

“I couldn’t practise properly for this tournament. It has been difficult and every game has been tough but if I’m on court, I try to forget my problems and play for the team.”

“It will only get tougher from here on but my teammates and I will keep trying (to win our matches).”

Japan face South Korea tomorrow while China will take on Thailand.