Chiharu Shida (å¿ç° åé½) & Nami Matsuyama (æ¾å±± å¥æª)
In light of their first HSBC World Tour win today, a little thread is in order.
After the departure of Fukuman/Yonao a little over a year ago and that of Fukushima/Hirota this April,
21-year-old Shida and 20-year-old Matsuyama are now the #1 pair at https://www.saishunkan-badminton.jp/ , Akane Yamaguchi’s club.
With good results in domestic competition (among others, winners of the All Member’s tournament last year, a feat repeated again last month), they managed to play themselves into the National B Team at the end of 2017 and got continuous action in international tournaments in 2018.
The results in these tournaments were rather outstanding: a second round exit at the Japan Open against experienced Tang Yinhua/ Yu Xiaohan was their “worst” result, apart from that they managed a semi final or better in all their tournaments: semi final at the German Open, semi final in Canada, as well as finals at the Singapore Open, the Akita Masters, the Vietnam Open and the Indonesia Masters, followed by the victory in Taipei.
As a result, they will enter the top 20 in the world come next week.
An interesting prospect for the future, even though their progress might be hampered by the intense competition in their discipline within the Japanese national team.
