Two-time badminton world champion, Kento Momota, Thursday (18/4), announced that he had decided to retire at the age of 29 following never recovering from a car accident 4 years ago.
Momota, who has certainly failed to win a ticket to the 2024 Paris Olympics, will represent Japan for the last time at the Thomas Cup in China this month.
Furthermore, the former world number one badminton player will only appear in domestic competitions in Japan.
“I made this decision because I feel I have reached the limits of my physical and mental abilities in the quest to be the best in the world,” said Momota, who is currently ranked 52nd in the world.
Momota was once the king of world badminton, winning 11 titles in 2019 and losing only six of the 73 matches he played that year.
However, his fate turned around in January 2020 when the car taking him to Kuala Lumpur airport had an accident a few hours following he won the Malaysia Masters.
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The car driver died on the spot and Momota had to undergo surgery to repair a fractured eye socket.
Momota then experienced double vision and struggled to achieve his best performance even though he competed once more a year following the accident.
He lost in the first round of the 2021 Tokyo Olympics and was knocked out in the first round in four of the five tournaments he competed in the following year.
Momota then suffered a series of injuries which caused his world ranking to drop when Viktor Axelsen established himself as the world number one badminton player.
Momota actually wants to appear at the 2024 Paris Olympics but his national ranking is not good enough to enter the Japanese national team. (AFP/Z-1)
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