Odense: The World No. 1 men’s singles player Kento Momota of Japan relied on his speed and strong attacks at the end of decider, especially smashing towards Chou Tien Chen’s back hand baseline to subdue the Taiwanese 22-20, 16-21, 21-15 in a 77-minutes battle to claim the Denmark Open title on Sunday.
Momota also became the first Japanese to win the Denmark men’s singles title after Ippei Kojima won it in 1970.
As the 24-year-old was coming back from 11-13 to tie the score at 13-13, he re-took the lead with a powerful jumping smash towards Chou’s left baseline, where that smash was recorded at 416 km/h (258.49 mph). Momota almost broke the world record for fastest badminton hit during competition (male), which was achieved by Lee Chong Wei at 417 km/h (259 mph), in Tokyo, Japan, on 24 September 2017.
See video below for Kento Momota’s 416 km/h (258.49 mph) smash.
“It was a tough match, but I am glad I was able to win the title,” said Momota.
“I’ll need to work on my net shot in order to get better in future tournaments,” added Momota.
In women’s competition, Taiwan’s World No. 1 Tai Tzu Ying who has won all her four matches against World No. 10 Saina Nehwal of India, was forced to dig deep and repel Nehwal’s attacks to beat the Indian shuttler 21-13, 13-21, 21-6 in a 52-minutes battle.
Tai took home prize money of USD $54,250 for the victory while Nehwal bagged USD $26,350.
World No. 1 men’s pair Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo/Marcus Fernaldi Gideon of Indonesia outlasted Takeshi Kamura and Keigo Sonoda of Japan 21-15, 21-16 in 36 minutes to walk away laughing at the 10th meeting between the two pairs. The Indonesians held a 6-4 advantage in their head-to-head record after Sunday’s victory.
The 2018 Denmark Open final seemed to have dominated by all World No. 1 in either singles or doubles categories as China’s World No. 1 mixed doubles pair Zheng Siwei/Huang Yaqiong continued the trend by beating Dechapol Puavaranukroh/Sapsiree Taerattanachai of Thailand 21-16, 21-13, while women’s doubles World No. 1 Yuki Fukushima/Sayaka Hirota of Japan also overcame compatriots Shiho Tanaka/Koharu Yonemoto 21-19, 21-16 for the women’s doubles crown.
