(Reporter Kim Hwan, Xports News) Japanese fans were also shocked by the withdrawal of Japanese women’s badminton ace Akane Yamaguchi (#3 in the world rankings).
Yamaguchi, who was considered a candidate to win this tournament along with world No. 1 An Se-young and second-ranked Wang Ziyi, was unable to complete the entire schedule and announced his withdrawal during the match, which is quite shocking to fans.
As a series of players, including Yamaguchi, withdraw from the women’s singles at the Malaysia Open (Super 1000) due to physical fitness issues, fans are turning their attention to the Badminton World Federation (BWF), which unreasonably set the schedule for the tournament. It is pointed out that the BWF, which requires top-ranked players to participate in the tour all year round, cannot be free from responsibility.
Yamaguchi withdrew while playing against Pusarla Venkata Sindhu (India, world No. 18) in the women’s singles quarterfinals of the 2026 BWF Malaysia Open held at the Axiata Arena in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on the 9th (Korean time).
Yamaguchi lost 11-21 in the first game against Sindhu, a silver medalist at the 2016 Rio Olympics and a bronze medalist at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. After dropping the first game, he asked the referee to stop the game due to an injury before the start of the second game, and ultimately left the court after determining that he could no longer participate in the game.
 |
With Yamaguchi’s withdrawal, there are no more Japanese players left in the women’s singles competition at this tournament.
The forced march that has been going on since last year is cited as the biggest reason why Yamaguchi failed to complete the competition and gave up midway.
After winning the Paris World Championships last August and the Korea Open (Super 500) in September, Yamaguchi participated in the Denmark Open and French Open (Super 750) in October, the Japan Masters (Super 500) in November, and the BWF World Tour Finals and All Japan Championships in December.
Yamaguchi, who won the All Japan Championships, boarded a plane to Malaysia just a few days after the competition ended. The schedule is such that it would be strange not to experience physical fitness issues.
In addition to Yamaguchi, there are more players who have given up on the competition due to poor physical condition due to fatigue.
Han Yue, ranked 5th in the world of China, withdrew due to a cold before the round of 16, and Yu-jin Shim (ranked 10th in the world), who participated in the tournament as a representative of Korea along with Se-young Ahn, also gave up the match just before the start of the second game in her first match against Akane Miyazaki (ranked 9th in the world, Japan).
Ahn Se-young also struggled in the early stages of the tournament due to fatigue like other players, including showing a noticeably heavy body in the first round (round of 32) against Michelle Lee (Canada, world No. 12).
 |
The Japanese badminton world and some fans were greatly shocked when they heard the news of Yamaguchi’s withdrawal.
Yamaguchi fiercely criticized BWF for making a world tour schedule all year round, saying that what brought him to this point was BWF’s unreasonable schedule.
There were responses such as “The schedule is excessive. This type of schedule destroys top athletes. It cannot continue like this,” “Yamaguchi was already dragging his legs in the competition at the end of last year,” and “Fatigue has reached its limit due to the excessive schedule. The federation must make sure that players do not get injured due to the excessive schedule.”
As Yamaguchi withdrew, the semifinals of the Malaysia Open were held between An Se-young and Chen Yufei (China, world No. 4), and Wang Zhiyi and Xindu.
Photo = Yonhap News
Reporter Kim Hwan hwankim14@xportsnews.com
The categories of this article follow the classification of media outlets.
