PETALING JAYA: Former men’s singles world champion Kento Momota of Japan has been absent from the world badminton circuit for almost four months but showed his career is far from over by reaching the Korean Masters semi-finals.
Yesterday, he struggled for a while before stepping on the gas to beat Soong Joo Ven 21-16, 21-11 in the quarter-finals at the Gwangju National Women’s University Stadium yesterday.
The Korean Masters is his first tournament since losing in the first round of the Australian Open in August and it is also his second semi-final appearance this year after reaching the same stage in the German Open in February.
He had competed in 11 tournaments so far this year but early exits in most of them saw the former world No. 1 plummeting to the 52nd spot in the world.
Joo Ven gave credit to Momota’s dogged determination.
“It’s looks like he is back in form at the Korean Masters,” said Joo Ven.
“I was able to challenge him for the early part of the first game but after that, he showed his standard. He had a lot of variety in his shots.
“This is the player who used be feared by others. He looked to be on the way up here.”
Momota faces China’s Lee Lanxi next while the other semi-final will be between Japan’s Koki Watanabe and Taiwan’s Wang Tzu-wei.
Lanxi had earlier beaten another Malaysian Leong Jun Hao 21-14, 22-20 in the quarter-finals.
Momota has reached three finals over the last three years since winning the 2020 Malaysian Masters, where he was involved in a car accident. He reached the final of the 2021 Denmark Open, won the 2021 Indonesian Masters and finished as the runner-up in the 2022 Malaysian Open.
Malaysia’s challenge in the men’s doubles ended when Goh Sze Fei-Nur Izzuddin Rumsani went down 18-21, 10-21 to reigning world champions Kang Min-hyuk-Seung-jae.
