Rant: These 2 Olympics Badminton matches are so exciting!!

 Erm... well this is not actually a rant but just my thoughts after surviving 2 really exciting Women's Double (WD) group matches!!

The first one was the world No.1 (FUKUSHIMA Yuki and HIROTA Sayaka from Japan) vs the world no.11 (CHOW Mei Kuan and LEE Meng Yean from Malaysia). I'm a huge fan of Japanese Badminton btw.

Well, I was pretty worried for the Japanese pair as Hirota appears with knee brace. After searching around, its that she suffered from ACL (erm...I do not know much about it but it seems "common" to sports players who have to stop suddenly on motion)

 

Image source: indosport.com

Although I don't really see Hirota struggling with the knee brace. She is not as agile and seems to avoid "dangerous" actions like diving and such but definitely moving well enough. But still, the Japanese got to a very bad start and lost their first game, 17 - 21. (For those who don't know, Badminton is best of 3 games)

They seems to pick up their game a little (thanks to the mistakes by their Malaysian opponents) and took the 2nd game, 21 -15.

The 3rd and deciding game was...well, puzzling with the Malaysians losing steam and making mistakes left, right. And Japanese pair took the game relatively easily, 21 - 8.

But wow, it's a super exciting match!! Love how the Japanese were fighting and holding on! Big smiles and always positive! They're my favourite WD pair!!

Image source: bwfbadminton.com

Next match, right after this one was another Japanese pair,  world no. 2 MATSUMOTO Mayu and  NAGAHARA Wakana against world no. 24, Canadian pair, Rachel HONDERICH and Kristen TSAI.

The Canadians were off to a good start, controlling most of the 1st game and winning it 14-21. They fought hard but lost the other 2 games, but scores were really close, 19-21 and 18-21.

To be honest, I'm totally impressed by the Canadians. They're very energetic and appears much more confidence and positive throughout. They've lost but I think they did extremely well to push the world no.2 to a 3rd deciding game!

It's nerve wrecking to watch these matches though. Never imaged the formidable Japanese WD to have to play the chasing game. (But well, they've still yet to meet the Chinese or the Koreans)

I really worry for Fukuhiro (Fukushima and Hirota) with Hirota's knee injury... but finger crossed, I hope they medaled!