With the end of the World Championships on December 19, Beijing time, the dust of the 2021 season of badminton has settled. Some people rejoice and some people are sad, and the most worrying are the three groups of world firsts (or former world firsts):
Dai Ziying, the world number one in women's singles, lost gold at both the Olympic Games and the World Championships, ending with two runners-up, failing to achieve a breakthrough of 0 career major championships;
Kento Momota, the second in the men's singles world, participated in the Olympic Games held at home with a big hit, but was eliminated in the group stage;
The mixed doubles world second Zheng Siwei / Huang Yaqiong combination lost to teammates Wang Yilu / Huang Dongping in the Olympic Games and the final of the National Games, and the world championships were eliminated in the first round...
Dai Ziying: Maybe retiring with regret that he never won a World Series championship
Super ability allows Chinese Taipei's dai Ziying to dominate various open tournaments, and the world ranking has always been high, but it is occasionally surpassed by Chen Yufei and others. But her fragile psychology made her not even reach the top 4 of any major competition before 2021, and she had a breakthrough in 2021, but she still failed to win the championship, ending with only two runners-up.
In the women's singles competition of the Tokyo Olympic Games, Dai Ziying, who is the world's first, and Chen Yufei, who is the second in the world, will meet in the final without suspense. In the final, in the face of Chen Yufei, who won more than one or lost less (15 wins and 3 losses), Dai Ziying lost 1-2, which made people sigh that the female version of Li Zongwei had been born unconsciously.
More than four months later, at the World Championships, Dai Ziying once again reached the final, this time facing Japan's Akane Yamaguchi. Dai Ziying and Akane Yamaguchi had the upper hand with a previous record of 10 wins and 8 losses, but in the end they were swept 0-2 by their opponents, and the specific scores were 14-21, 11-21.
Before the World Championships, there were rumors that the 27-year-old Dai Ziying would choose to retire after the World Championships, if this is true, then the record of 0 gold in the competition will make the career of the "Queen of the Open" full of regrets. However, as far as the current state of Dai Ziying is concerned, she is fully capable of competing in another Olympic cycle, and I hope that she can persist and achieve a real breakthrough in the competition.
Momota Kendou: After the defeat of the Olympic Games, the hot stove soldiers completely fell into a trough
In 2018 and 2019, the most beautiful athlete in the badminton world is none other than Momota Kendou, in the past two years, he has not only won a large number of championships, facing the top 5 masters in the world rankings, but also often giving his opponents single-digit scores, showing his crazy strength. Some people have compared him with Lin Dan, believing that his dominance is close to the "super Dan" of that year.
However, this is a world number one with a shallow fate with the Olympic Games. At the beginning of 2020, he suffered a car accident and suffered relatively large trauma to his eyes; subsequently, he was diagnosed with new crown pneumonia, and his competitive status began to decline. Although the postponement of the Olympic Games seems to be beneficial to his physical recovery, it is also consuming his energy, so that in Tokyo in July 2021, we see his loneliness.
In the final round of the tokyo Olympic group stage, Momota Hyun-doo faced South Korea's Heo Yoo-hee. It was a contest that was considered unsustainable before the game, but just when everyone thought that Momota Kendou could easily pass the level, a huge unpopular was born. Momota lost 2-0 and watched as his opponent took away the only qualifying spot. After the game, many fans and media who had originally supported him turned against him, and the criticism of him was endless.
The tragic defeat of the Olympic Games made Momota Kendou completely fall into a trough. In the games that followed, he lost frequently, including to Shi Yuqi in the Sudirman Cup. Before the start of the World Championships, he announced that he would retire due to a serious back injury, bringing the 2021 season to a sad end.
Zheng Siwei/Huang Yaqiong: Leading the entire Olympic cycle, but being overtaken in the sprint
There is no doubt that the 2021 season is extremely disappointing for the mixed doubles duo of Zheng Siwei /Huang Yaqiong. Throughout the Tokyo Olympic cycle, they almost beat the invincible hand in the world, and although teammates Wang Yilu / Huang Dongping were called double insurance with them, they were always a foil- existence. However, that all changed at the Olympics.
On July 30, the IELTS and Yellow Duck duo competed fiercely in the badminton mixed doubles final at the Tokyo Olympic Games. Surprisingly, the unpopular Yellow Duck group 2-1 overturned the world's first IELTS combination at that time. In the final stage of the game, facing the opponent who killed the red eye, Zheng Siwei and Huang Yaqiong looked sluggish, which made people look a little distressed.
The second meeting between the two sides is the badminton mixed doubles final of the Shaanxi National Games. This time, Wang Yilu/Huang Dongping did the same, defeating Zheng Siwei/Huang Yaqiong again 2-1, allowing the latter to taste the bitterness of the defeat of the city twice in 2 months. The damage to the IELTS combination was fatal, and they seemed to have lost all confidence in an instant.
At the World Championships, Wang Yilu/ Huang Dongping withdrew, and the IELTS combination seemed to have no suspense in winning the championship. However, perhaps because they had been absent from the world competition for too long, they were in no form, and they lost 1-2 to the Hong Kong duo of Zhang Dezheng / Wu Yongyao in the first match, missing out on a three-game winning streak. Ending the 2021 season in this way, the IELTS combination made people sigh.
——Pay attention to the small fish and feel the temperature of sports!