Badminton Year-Ender: Top 5 shuttlers of the 2018 season

Guts, gumption and glory -- the 2018 badminton season witnessed these in bucketloads. It was yet another year dotted with some performances that won’t be erased from the fans’ minds in a long time.

It was indeed a hectic season with major competitions like the Commonwealth Games and Asian Championships sandwiched in between an already packed schedule. Shuttlers had a hard time keeping themselves fully fit and ready for the most coveted titles.

Despite the extra workload, there were some players who caught everyone’s attention with the immense determination they showed day in and day out at the biggest tournaments of the year.

As we bid adieu to the year, here are five of the best performers from badminton in 2018:

#1 Kento Momota

Irrepressible. Indomitable. Indefatigable.

All adjectives fall short of describing the kind of incredible season that Japan’s Kento Momota had in 2018. The Japanese southpaw made the most of his second coming on the tour since his suspension due to illegal gambling was lifted.

And nobody better than Momota taught us how to make the most of second chances!

The Mino-born player started playing better than ever on his way to reaching the pinnacle of the world rankings. Momota created a slice of history for Japan through that feat by becoming the first man from the country to hold the No. 1 spot in the BWF rankings in either singles or doubles.

The winning spree started at a lesser-known tournament -- the Vietnam International Challenge in March. Buoyed by that victory, Momota took it up a level further when he scalped the likes of Lee Chong Wei and Chen Long to be crowned the champion of Asia.

A loss to Lee in the final of the Malaysia Open could not deter him and he added the Indonesia Open title the very next week. He rode on that success to conquer an even bigger tournament -- the World Championships.

While the Asian Games defeat was an aberration, Momota returned with a vengeance to take titles at the Japan Open, Denmark Open, China Open, apart from runner-up finishes at the BWF World Tour Finals and Victor China Open.

With a total of seven titles and three finishes as the losing finalist, Momota was simply better than the best!

#2 Tai Tzu Ying

Is there any shot, any court, any tournament that the wondrous Tai Tzu Ying has no answer to? The Chinese Taipei girl never fails to leave spectators spellbound with her breathtaking deceptive strokes that only she can come up with.

And that is why, most of the time her opponents are left scratching their heads when they face the magic of Tai. The 24-year-old simply picked up from where she left last year and even outdid her 2017 season.

It needs to be mentioned here that she did not have the best of starts to the season and suffered a loss in her very first final of the year at the Malaysia Masters. But that slip in Bukit Jalil was only an anomaly which she proved the very next week when she beat Saina Nehwal to win the Indonesia Masters.

Thus began her march and it continued through the All England Open, Badminton Asia Championships, Uber Cup, Malaysia Open, Indonesia Open, finally ending in the quarter-finals of the World Championships to He Bingjiao.

By then, she had accumulated 31 wins in a row, breaking Li Xuerui’s record of winning 30 consecutive matches.

After that stutter, she simply brushed it off and resumed her title hunt once more, sweeping the Asian Games gold, Chinese Taipei Open, Denmark Open until injury reared its ugly head and interrupted her run.

Tai’s exploits in 2018 gave her eight titles and two runner-up finishes.

#3 PV Sindhu

Consistency was the keyword for Indian badminton darling PV Sindhu in 2018. She made it to the finals of five tournaments, two of which were the prestigious Asian Games and the World Championships. But where she lacked in was the push needed to cross the final hurdles in all these big events.

The stumble became so synonymous with Sindhu that she even received an unenviable epithet -- Silver Sindhu.

She changed all that in the very last tournament of the year through a display that not only established her as the Golden Girl but also helped her to silence her detractors once and for all. Gritty, resilient, spirited, fast -- Sindhu was everything at the BWF World Tour Finals that she wasn’t at any other tournament for the rest of the year.

Most importantly, she was brimming with self-belief even when the chips looked down. That is exactly what aided in her turnaround against Tai Tzu Ying and gave the Indian her first win over the World No. 1 since the Rio Olympics.

Sindhu did not lose a game from thereon and demolished World No. 2 Akane Yamaguchi, World No. 8 Ratchanok Intanon and World No. 5 Nozomi Okuhara en route to the biggest title win of her career.

Considering the way she finished the year, all Indian badminton enthusiasts would be eagerly waiting to see if she can pick up from there in 2019.

#4 Sameer Verma

When everybody hoped Kidambi Srikanth to continue his 2017 heroics, it was instead Sameer Verma who stole the show in Indian men’s singles badminton.

A prodigy on the junior circuit, the Dhar-born Verma had medals from the World Junior Championships and the Asian Junior Championships. But recurrent injuries prevented him from fulfilling the promises he had made early on his career.

It was finally in 2018 that it all came together for the Pullela Gopichand protégé. Verma emerged from the shadows of Srikanth and HS Prannoy to make a name for himself. The Swiss Open title triumph in February showed to some extent what was to come during the remainder of the year for Verma.

The journey wasn’t exactly very smooth for the next few months but it was the post-World Championships period that saw Sameer become the player that he was always supposed to be. With a spring in his steps and a newfound conviction in his abilities, Sameer won the Hyderabad International and remained in the hunt for a berth at the BWF World Tour Finals.

His speed and defence on the court were exemplary and Verma was a picture of calm even under the most intense pressure. That awarded him the Syed Modi International title for the second time in his career to push him into the final-eight at the World Tour Finals, where he reached the semi-finals.

With three titles and a spectacular debut at the season-ender in 2018, the World No. 12 Sameer has raised hopes that he definitely has more to offer.

#5 Carolina Marin

She may not be on a title-winning spree, she may look less than her 100% fitness. But never ever count out Carolina Marin for one thing she never lacks in -- hunger.

The 25-year-old has bagged every elite title possible in the world of badminton -- an Olympic gold, the world championships and even the European Championships. Yet that has not diminished her motivation to keep scaling the heights one bit.

Since her Rio Olympic gold medal in 2016, the Spaniard hadn’t been at her imperious best and slumped to unexpected early losses. Injuries played a big role in not letting her have the kind of performances she would have liked.

But in the second half of 2018, Marin showed that she was nowhere gone. By beating quality opponents like Saina, Sindhu and Bingjiao, the former World No. 1 asserted her supremacy once again en route to becoming the only women’s singles shuttler to win the World Championships title thrice.

And she didn’t stop there. She carried on that immaculate form to the Japan Open and the China Open to have a pristine Asian swing, winning 15 matches in a row.

Along with the European Championships, Marin won four titles in 2018 and has begun to look dangerous as ever.

Edited by Sripad