BWF Japan Open 2024: Naraoka, Ohori, and Yamaguchi continue home charge through to last eight
The two Japanese favourites each won their second-round matches on Thursday, while the men's and women's top seeds Shi Yuqi and Tai Tzu-ying also progressed.
Badminton
Japanese favourites reached the quarter-finals of their home badminton tournament, the BWF Japan Open 2024, with Naraoka Kodai (men's singles) and Ohori Aya and Yamaguchi Akane (women's singles) winning in the second round on Thursday (22 August).
Their victories meant three of the four Japanese seeds across the two singles draws advanced to the respective last-eight stages of the tournament, but Okuhara Nozomi, the women's eighth seed, conceded a walkover to compatriot Nidaira Natsuki.
Naraoka, who had to come through a three-game first-round match, was again forced to go the distance in his last-16 clash against Malaysian Leong Jun Hao in a marathon contest which took 85 minutes to settle.
Leong took the opening game 23-21 as both men traded the lead multiple times, and although Naraoka dominated the second as the lesser-experienced Malaysian appeared to tire, the decider proved close once more.
It was the Malaysian who led early on before Naraoka levelled the score at 11-11, before taking 10 of the last 14 points to close out a 21-23, 21-10, 21-15 win.
Naraoka will next face Wang Tzu-wei of Chinese Taipei. The only other seed left in the men's singles is world number one Shi Yuqi (People's Republic of China), who is in the opposite half to Naraoka. Shi beat Lin Chun-yi of Chinese Taipei 21-14, 21-17.
Meanwhile, in the women's singles, sixth seed Ohori set up a quarter-final meeting with Thailand's Busanan Ongbamrungphan after seeing off Kim Gaeun of Republic of Korea 21-17, 21-18.
Second seed Yamaguchi also enjoyed a straight-games triumph, over Denmark's Line Højmark Kjærsfeldt, needing just 36 minutes to beat her European opponent 21-12, 21-14.
Her reward is a match-up with Chinese fifth seed Han Yue.
Top seed Tai Tzu-ying of Chinese Taipei beat Ukraine's Polina Buhrova to reach the last eight, where she will play Nidaira, the recipient of the walkover win against Okuhara.