BWF World Tour 2025 beings with the Malaysia Open – Steve’s Badminton Blog and Website

The 2025 season begins with the curtain raiser here in Malaysia which is a Super 1000 event. It is a good time to see who has been putting in some training to improve themselves over the December break. Let’s see how the matchups are in this opening tournament.

Day 1 was a bit of a shocker in terms of the stadium quality. Amazingly it was leaking on both court 2 and court 3. The situation got better for court 3 to the point that it could resume, but court 2 was not usable. This is a serious issue and it is certainly making Malaysia look like the laughing stock of the badminton world. This is a Super 1000 event, not some friendly tournament! My goodness. We get rain here all the time, how can this happen?

Firstly, let’s look at the top match ups for men’s singles in this tournament. I have to add, the BWF website is harder to read now in its new format… The men’s singles after the round of 32, it would appear that there was not many surprises. Lee Lan Xi still has not yet managed to figure out how to beat Yushi Tanaka, losing all 4 meetings against Tanaka including this time. Viktor Axelsen seems to have not gotten over his injury as he did not look like himself against Lee Cheuk Yiu. Koki Watanabe continues to improve and overcame Loh Kean Yew with relative ease. Alex Lanier gave Vitidsarn a scare, but he still is not yet a complete player and could not overcome Vitidsarn. Ng Ka Loong continues his fine form and despite losing the first game, dominated Weng Hong Yang. Prannoy struggled to beat Brian Yang, and I hope this is the year Brian lives up to his potential after that good showing against Prannoy. Antonsen carried his form over from last year to overcome Wang Tzu Wei. Chou Tien Chen continues to stamp his authority over Su Li Yang. Shi Yuqi had to put in some work to tame a feisty Kenta Nishimoto in 3 games. Lu Guang Zu’s experience shone to enable him to overcome Leong Jun Hao’s game plan in 3 games. Lin Chun Yi had a slow start by losing the 1st game tamely to Rasmus Gemke before he came roaring back to win it. Ginting faced no problems in dispatching Lee Chia Hao. Naraoka had little trouble with Chisto Popov after wearing out Christo in the first game, the second game was relatively easy.

The surprises so far for men’s singles are Toma Popov Junior beating Jonathan Christie and Laksya Sen losing to Chi Yu Jen . Christie looked a bit off colour and was passive in the first game. He fought back in the second game, but in the 3rd game, he was making way too many mistakes. Christie’s back shows lots of cup marks, which means he went on some treatment for his back. That might explain his rather indifferent form. He could not put in the usual power from his footwork into his game consistently and was blowing hot and cold throughout the entire match. I did not manage to watch Laksya Sen’s match against Chi Yu Jen, but from the duration of the match and scoreline, it seems Laksya is way below his best.

Women’s singles saw some surprise results as well. Mia Blichfeldt’s decision to train with the French team under the guidance of Toma Popov is yielding excellent results. She has not been the same player since the switch. She is showing much more tactical maturity now, she managed to beat Tomoka Miyazaki in a fashion which was impressive. Miyazaki is young and is a willing runner around court, and Blichfeldt slowly wore her down. That was very impressive. The other surprise was seeing Nozomi Okuhara here. Having been absent for most of 2024, it was a surprise to see her still active, despite the result not going her way against Beiwen Zhang.

The doubles saw plenty of action and surprises. Too many to talk about here. The highlight would be for the men’s doubles, both finalists of the World Tour Finals were duped out of the tournament in round 1.

For women’s doubles the surprise was seeing so many new pairings as there were major reshuffles going on in the Japanese team, Chinese team, and to a lesser extent, the Indonesians as well. Shida and Matsutomo is an interesting combination, as Matsutomo is a very strong front court player but a weak rear court player. Shida is a great overall player, but not very strong at the rear. I am having many permutations on how they are going to make it work. I already think Fukushima and Matsumoto is going to work wonderfully well. Fukushima is similar to Nagahara in terms of playing style, and she used to leave the rear court to Hirota. But since Hirota’s knee injury, she started to improve on her rear court game. Now she is a much better overall player, but a slightly better front court play. Matsumoto is better at the rear court, and this compliments Fukushima’s style of play very well. For Jia Yi Fan, I don’t know who is the best pairing for her, to be honest. She is very strong in the rear court, and is a very good overall player. I think it is going to be down to who can build a good understanding with her. Zhang Shu Xian should work well with Jia Yi Fan as she is very good at the front, but is much weaker at the back, and that is an area of weakness which Jia Yi Fan will have to get used to. The Indonesian pairing of Ramadhanti and Mayasari will need some analysis on my part. I think this is a better pairing than Rahayu and Ramadhanti, but I am not that familiar with Mayasari’s game, so I will need to watch her more.

There are even more changes in mixed doubles which need even more analysis! I am guilty of not doing enough here to comment. Until I done my homework here, I shall refrain to do so!

That’s it for this entry. Resumption of work as well as the resumption of badminton tournaments has left me playing catchup.

Until the next update, eat well, get plenty of rest, and keep the badminton going!