A day before the start of the TotalEnergies BWF Thomas & Uber Cup Finals 2024, all the attention was on Kento Momota.
The hero of Japan’s history-making Thomas Cup title win a decade ago, and their biggest name since then, would call it a day soon, and there was curiosity all around on what was on his mind. The subject of the attention looked relaxed and was all smiles.
“It’s my last time to play against top players, so I just want to enjoy this tournament and give my best,” said the two-time world champion. “I feel a little sad because I cannot play against them anymore, but right now I’m happy to be here. As this is my last tournament, I will be going around and asking other players to take a picture with me.”
Momota will play third singles, and he emphasised the importance of that position.
“I want to play my best, and the third singles is the most important position because it decides the tie. So you have to be strong mentally. Of course I want to win the title for Japan in my last international tournament.”
Who would he miss the most?
“I’ll miss Viktor Axelsen and Anthony Ginting because Axelsen and I are of the same generation, and with Ginting, whenever we played it was always tough.”
Inevitably there were the questions about his accident and his decision to retire.
“After the accident my body was not in good condition. It took a long time to recover. I could never fully recover from the accident, there were a lot of hard times after that, and I couldn’t play my best, although I tried hard in training. My results haven’t been good, so I decided to retire from international competition and focus on playing in Japan and to help juniors in Japan.”
Once again, happy retirement from international competitions @momota_kento and congrats on a fantastic career! 🤝 Can we please play a few matches at the warmup courts so that I can try to make up for our H2H? 😅💯🤞 pic.twitter.com/VHGJPXTK5o
— Viktor Axelsen (@ViktorAxelsen) April 26, 2024
Momota revealed that post-retirement he would spend time popularising badminton in Japan.
“After retiring, I want to participate in badminton events where I can inspire juniors and make them love badminton once they play with me. As long as I can play badminton, I want to play as much as I can and help in inspiring the next generation of Japanese players. I plan to play with children and juniors and hope to inspire them and I hope to make them love badminton as much as I did.”
How does Momota want to be remembered?
“For being myself, for my badminton and my playing style, so everyone can remember me as Kento Momota.”