Marin, Momota and the Minions: Missing from the podiums & missed

For one brief moment when she slipped a tad, the commentator had his heart in his mouth. And with him, all of Madrid seemed to gasp. It would be exhausting, not to mention heartbreaking, to think of another recurrence of the knee injury that kept Carolina Marin out of the Tokyo Olympics. Mercifully, there was nothing wrong and she got on with the game against Gregoria Mariska Tunjung of Indonesia.
Marin would lose 12 consecutive points to lose the game 21-10 in the decider at her home event, the Madrid Spain Masters. But there was a sigh of relief after she tripped that there was nothing worrisome in the immediate aftermath or long term. She would proceed to fight it out in another tournament at Orleans the next week.
Three comebacks of former World Champions in women’s singles carry an air of sentiment: PV Sindhu who made finals at Madrid, Nozomi Okuhara, whose ranking is in freefall, but her fighting spirit intact, and of course Carolina Marin, the 2016 Olympic champion. Marin has managed to stay in the Top Ten, and lost only to the big names this season – Chen Yufei, Yamaguchi and An Se Young besides Tunjung at Madrid who went on to claim the title. But she remains pivotal as she chases a second shy at the Olympic medal in Paris in 2024.

With three World Championships, she’s ahead of the pack in this golden generation. But her comeback is fascinating to follow not only because of how dominant she was when winning those World titles and the Rio biggie, but because how massive a contender she remains in the future, despite the losses to the Top Five right now.
The speed is down a few clicks of course. And only time can tell if she can amp it back to her original pace, so integral to her playing style, or will the slowing reflexes hold her back from gunning for the big titles. But Marin’s significance is as much owing to her geography, as it is about pure competitive badminton and her matchups with Tai Tzu, Yufei and An Se Young.
Paris will be as good as a ‘home Games’ for all European shuttlers, and Marin remains the best of European contenders in a sport that boasts the Asian juggernaut. Wave upon wave of contenders from China, Taiwan, Japan, India and with An Se Young, from Korea.
Marin might be 30 the time Paris rolls along, but it will be foolish to think Team Marin – longtime coach Fernando Rivas especially – don’t have tricks up their sleeves, when targeting a podium finish at 2024 Games. But as the only European challenging the Asian supremacy, Marin remains missed from podiums.
Marin’s anticipated return to title winning ways is probably comparable only to Kento Momota’s in men’s singles. Coach Park Joo-bong of Japan insed no one is rushing the shuttler, but a title win for Momota will receive an ovation from not just the Japanese, but many neutrals who have followed his story of utter dominance at one point and then the unfortunate mishaps and the serious accident.
Momota was tipped to be the home Games hero at Tokyo, and had run up for himself a grand streak of 121 weeks as World No 1 when his super control over the shuttle brought him titles routinely. He had come back from a ban in gambling unrelated to badminton to rule over ranking charts, and was poised to take over from Lin Dan, the crown of supremacy, before it all abruptly stopped due to a car accident in Kuala Lumpur.
Kento Momota of Japan. (AP/ PTI/FILE)
Momota’s not been the same since, with the eye issues a worry for the former World No 1. The likes of Kodai Naraoka, Kenta Nishimoto and Kanta Tsuneyama have leapfrogged Momota in Japan’s rankings, and defeats piled up against all and sundry in the Top 20 for the World No 22. Once an automaton with his unsmiling visage that spelt dominance, the shuttler though looks a lot more relaxed as he grins more ahead of matches and bears the losses, with stoic candour – a realisation that it might take a lot of time to be back to his best.
Momota and Okuhara have both often spoken about gratitude that they still play their beloved game. But every win on the Tour for Momota will get raucously cheered such is the affection of the neutral fans for a former invincible.
In 2019 he was, almost, setting a record for most titles in a season – a staggering 11 that year. There was also a 28 match winning streak from July to October of that year. His two World titles in 2015 and 2019 bookended relentless domination, and things needed to go really wrong – as they did – for him to be denied the home Olympic title, as he was eventually. It is that crushing miss, for a player so mighty once, that tugs at a wishl of his return to the peak.
When Momota won his first BWF Player of the Year award in 2018, he had stopped the two year streak of another serial champions – Marcus Fernaldi Gideon and Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo, known affectionately and due to their buzzing bumblebee playing style as Minions.
Having won their first Super series title in India back in April 2016, the Minions would go on to complete a hat trick at Delhi. They would also remain on top of the ranking charts for 215 astounding weeks, slipping off the perch only in a sad September of 2022, staying No 1 for close to five years.
But it was their pacy agile playing style that crowds around the world’s top arenas have been missing ever since their hurtling losses started. Buzzing about the court, leaping and diving and creating fantastic set ups at the net to finish from behind, the Minions used to be a sight to behold. Then came trouble. There was news of rancour with the coach, rumours of a split, as well as a persent ankle injury followed surgery for Gideon, but the Minions are no longer unbeatable.

Setting a record for eight Tour titles in a year, they had gotten the world accustomed to watching them win perennially. When that suddenly stopped, very abruptly, it was like a punch to the gut. There is also that wfulness of the elusive Olympic and World Championship medals, which the duo shockingly have never won, which prompts a wish for a successful comeback. Credited with bringing a sort of zing to the men’s doubles, the Minions have unfinished business left. Yet, other Indonesian pairings seem to have overtaken them, and the Daddies also walk away with all the affection for their longevity leaving the Minion tale desperately unfinished and a tad broken.
These are three sets of careers at crossroads, and with no guarantees or certainty that they will definitely return to the top of the pack. But it is in their trying, in Marin’s fighting defiance against the young Tunjung, in Momota humbly trying to push Kunlavut, in the Minions biding their time even past the Sudirman Cup, that three sets of careers become fascinating to observe.