LONDON: World No.1 Kento Momota made a winning return to international action at the All England Open on Wednesday.
The 26-year-old Japan star defeated India’s Kashyap Parupalli 21-13, 22-20 in a first-round match played without fans in Birmingham.
Momota, who made a successful return to domestic badminton by winning the All-Japan Championship in December, was playing his first BWF world tour match since a January 2020 car crash in Malaysia, in which he suffered a fractured eye socket and his driver was killed.
“I was very nervous. I’ve been away for such a long time,” he told the BWF website. “I wasn’t confident about winning this match, but finally I could win it and I’m very happy about that.”
Momota missed out on his planned comeback to the international tour in January after testing positive for Covid-19, which led to the Japan squad pulling out of three events in Thailand.
The start of the prestigious All England Open was delayed on Wednesday after a number of Covid-19 tests yielded both “positive” and “inconclusive” results.
All were retested and proved negative, allowing the event to begin five hours late at 2pm (1400 GMT) with all participants cleared to play.
