Jinjiang: China’s former World No. 2 men’s singles player Shi Yuqi who received a one-year ban from the Chinese Badminton Association due to inappropriate behavior during and after the match between him and Kento Momota in the 2020 Thomas Cup semi-final tie between China and Japan, was seen training alongside the Rio Olympics champion – Chen Long, together with other players from the Chinese national badminton team in the Jinjiang Sports Center in Fujian province a few days ago.
Jinjiang TV station captured the moment when Shi was standing in the back row, while wearing a white T-shirt printed with four Chinese characters “我想打球”. The direct translation of these four words would be “I want to play ball”, or it can be defined as “I want to play badminton” since Shi is a world-class badminton player.
The four Chinese characters written on Shi’s T-Shirt could be a silent way of informing the Chinese Badminton Association about his strong desire to start competing again.
Meanwhile, Chen Long, who last competed at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and lost to Viktor Axelsen of Denmark in the final 15-21, 12-21, was also seen standing in the far right corner.
The fact that the 26-year-old Shi could start training with the Chinese badminton national team seemed to be a positive sign which means that the Chinese Badminton Association might have given Shi the green light to come out of the one-year suspension sooner than expected.
Chinese media speculated that fans may be able to start seeing Shi competing at some local tournaments within China as soon as June 11 at an individual tournament in Anshan, Liaoning province, followed by another individual tournament from July 17 to 24 in Xi’an, Shaanxi. Then, he would probably participate in two other team tournaments from October 18 to October 23 in Baoji, Shaanxi, and from November 20 to November 26 in Xuancheng, Anhui.
