Japan's Kento Momota battles depression with new-found maturity to prove his worth, eyes gold at 2020 Tokyo Olympics

There would have been a tingle of anticipation in the gut of 23-year-old Japanese left-hander Kento Momota as he emerged from the players’ tunnel leading into the main arena of Jakarta’s Istora Gelora Bung Karno, in the prelude to Sunday’s men’s singles final of the $1.25 million Indonesia Open badminton championships. It was not the first time that he was contesting the final of this cash-rich event, considered one of the most prestigious tournaments on the South East Asian leg of the World Tour, previously the Superseries circuit. Momota had been there before, and experienced that special feeling as a 20-year-old, then considered one of the most talented shuttlers in the world. In 2015, he had annexed the Indonesia Open title with a typically gritty 16-21, 21-19, 21-7 win over Denmark’s Jan O Jorgensen. [caption id=“attachment_4699481” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Kento Momota. AFP[/caption] In addition, this time, he had been the recipient of grudging admiration from the vociferous Indonesian crowd, after claiming some quality scalps on his way to the final – fourth-seeded Indian, Kidambi Srikanth; Anthony Sinisuka Ginting and Tommy Sugiarto, darlings of the home nation; and the redoubtable Malaysian, Lee Chong Wei, his conqueror in the final of the Malaysia Open, less than a week earlier. Towering on the other side of the net was Denmark’s top-seeded reigning world champion, Viktor Axelsen – a sight that failed to create any trepidation in Momota’s mind. The Japanese player’s career results against the Dane until that point were outstanding – a 7-2 win-loss ratio, including six consecutive triumphs in the past four years without a single loss since (and including) the 2014 Denmark-Japan Thomas Cup encounter. Their most recent duel, in the 2018 Thomas Cup finals in Bangkok, had ended in a comprehensive 21-17, 21-9 win for the Japanese ace. Kento Momota did not disappoint his supporters and growing legion of fans worldwide. In a masterly display of resolute defence, combined with sudden bouts of aggressive play that are the hallmarks of his game, the Kagawa native made light of Axelsen’s challenge, which progressively disintegrated as the 38-minute match wore on, and ended in a 21-14, 21-9 victory for the unseeded Japanese underdog. It could be said that Axelsen was at nowhere near the kind of form that had netted him the World Championship gold at Glasgow in August 2017. Still not moving with the felicity of old, after recovering from ankle surgery earlier this year, the Dane had no answer to Momota’s terrific footspeed, crisscross pattern of accurate strokes and those unpredictable flashes of aggression that were so unsettling for his rival. Momota now sits on a flattering 8-2 career head-to-head scoreline against a man who has, since the Glasgow Worlds, been firmly installed as one of the prime favourites for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics gold medal. With five-time former world champion and two-time Olympic gold medallist, Lin Dan finally showing signs of terminal decline, and 35-year-old Lee also being unable to compete with Momota if the match stretches over three games, the whole of Japan would be looking forward to their best male player claiming top honours on home soil, two years hence. And yet, matters may not have worked out in the manner they have when, in April 2016, the Japan’s badminton association put discipline above everything else (rather in the manner of the Spanish football association, in sacking celebrated coach Julen Lopetegui on the eve of the ongoing World Cup in Russia, after he failed to take them into confidence over his proposed move to Real Madrid at the end of the tournament) and took the unprecedented step of banning Momota for a year. On 7 April 2016, Momota was forced to admit visiting an illegal casino in Tokyo after the casino’s staff reported him gambling there “frequently”. It was revealed that he had gambled away 500,000 yen in the course of six visits to the casino with his teammate, Kenichi Tago, who frittered away an estimated 10 million yen after more than 60 visits to various casinos in the country.

“I was immature and foolish,” Momota told this correspondent through an interpreter, in the course of a brief interview in Kuala Lumpur, during the recently concluded Malaysia Open. “I was told by the Nippon Badminton Association secretary-general, Mr. Kinji Zeniya, that this sort of frequent gambling was punishable by law in Japan, with a prison sentence of up to three years. “In view of my services to Japanese badminton, they were willing to refrain from pressing charges if I accepted a one-year ban from international badminton. I readily accepted the compromise solution, and felt I richly deserved it. That one-year in the wilderness was the darkest period of my life, and I really missed the competition. But I resolved to keep practising and working out to stay fit; vowed that I would come back even stronger than before.”

It was this level of new-found maturity, combined with a fierce determination to show the world that he was the best, that allowed Momota to endure the depression that plagued him during those difficult days. His mind kept returning to the encomiums he had earned in 2012 when, as a wide-eyed youngster of 17 summers, he had grabbed the world junior crown in his home country’s port town of Chiba. The world junior title had come in the wake of a hard-fought 21-17, 19-21, 21-19 victory over China’s Xue Song who, ironically, never went on to become the kind of force in international badminton that Momota was to become, with his impregnable defence, speed of foot and limitless stamina that succeeded in wearing down even the fittest of antagonists. After his return to the circuit in April last year, his Badminton World Federation (BWF) ranking had fallen to below the 250 mark, and he could not obtain entry to any of the quality Superseries tournaments. He was forced to play the lowly Challenger circuit, against players he could probably beat with one hand tied behind his back, so that he could earn sufficient points to get automatic entry to the top tournaments. The victory that was considered a breakthrough in the second summer of his career came at the Badminton Asia Championships in Wuhan, China, in the dying days of April this year. He pulled the proverbial rabbit out of the hat with a facile 21-17, 21-13 triumph over two-time world champion and 2016 Olympic gold medallist, Chen Long, in the latter’s own hunting grounds. The win was all the more remarkable because he had never taken even a single game off the Chinese ace in four earlier meetings. But he was riding high on confidence after dismissing Malaysian great Lee in the semi-finals; and was simply irresistible in the summit clash. Almost exactly a month later, Momota proved that the win over Chen had been no flash in the pan, by repeating the victory with equal emphasis at the Thomas Cup finals in Bangkok, clenching his fists and kissing the Japanese national emblem on his T-shirt. This time, the scores were 21-9, 21-18; and left the former world champion physically and mentally shattered. Momota’s resume in 2018 alone includes two victories each over Chen Long, Lee Chong Wei, Viktor Axelsen and Kidambi Srikanth, four of the world’s best players. His sole notable loss has been to Lee in the Malaysia Open; and that only occurred because of the phenomenal home crowd backing for Lee, and the fact that the Malaysian was able to take enormous risks while playing a fast, attacking game over two games. Had that match gone to a decider – and it very nearly did, since Lee was saved at 20-21 in the second game by a lucky netcord that could so easily have stayed on his side of the court – there was no way that Momota would have been denied the title, for the hometown favourite was as limp as a squeezed out dishrag after his adrenalin-fuelled frenzy. There has also been no slacking in Momota’s steady surge towards the peak of the BWF rankings. Ranked 11th at the start of the Malaysia Open, eleven days ago, he moved last Thursday to the eighth position after barging into the finals from an unseeded spot in the draw. And now comes the Indonesia Open title, at the expense of the reigning world champion, which should see the Japan No 1 rise to World No 5 when the rankings are next declared. Indeed, Japanese badminton supporters have much to look forward to, when the Olympics next come calling at Tokyo in 2020. Between Kento Momota, Akane Yamaguchi and Nozomi Okuhara, Japan will have a more than even chance of capturing both the stellar singles gold medals at stake. The resurgence of the country’s badminton could then be considered to have hit its peak.