World Junior bronze medalist Nozomi OKUHARA, age of 16, advanced to Semifinals in All Japan Badminton Championships (6-11 Dec at Tokyo) overcoming one of the best Japanese players, Sayaka SATO
Nozomi, meaning ‘Hope’ in Japanese, won the rubber game (23-25,21-16,21-16) against Sayaka who has got the highest World Ranking among Japanese female singles players. In fact, Sayaka is the only Japanese female singles player qualified to Super Series(SS) Finals in Liuzhou,China next week
Meanwhile, another bronze medalist of World Junior, Kento MOMOTA could not achieve as high as Nozomi could, thrashed by the defending champion Kenichi TAGO in straight games (9-21,17-21)
Matches in Semifinals ;
【Mens Singles】
Kenichi TAGO vs Takuma UEDA
Sho SASAKI vs Shoji SATO
【Womens Singles】
Eriko HIROSE vs Ai GOTO
Minatsu MITANI vs Nozomi OKUHARA
【Mens Doubles】
Noriyasu HIRATA/Hirokatsu HASHIMOTO vs Kenta KAZUNO/Yoshiteru HIROBE
Shoji SATO/Naoki KAWAMAE vs Kenichi HAYAKAWA/Hiroyuki ENDO
【Womens Doubles】
Satoko SUETSUNA/Miyuki MAEDA vs Ayaka TAKAHASHI/Misaki MATSUTOMO,
Mizuki FUJII/Reika KAKIIWA vs Shizuka MATSUO/Mami NAITO
【Mixed Doubles】
Shintaro IKEDA/Reiko SHIOTA vs Kenta KAZUNO/Yuko KANAMORI
Takatoshi KUROSE/Megumi YOKOYAMA vs Ryota TAOHATA/Sayuri ASAHARA
BadPaL 