Kento Momota started his badminton career from junior level with quite perfect results. Momota's badminton talent has been seen since he was a child. The player born in Mitoyo, Kagawa Prefecture, on September 1, 1994, started to wrestle with feathers since he was in the second grade of elementary school. He won the first title in a fairly prestigious tournament in Japan, the All Japan Elementary School Championships. Kala's Momota, who was in grade 6, came out as a champion in the men's singles number. After elementary school, Momota continued his studies in Junior High School in Fukuoka Prefecture. In his third year, he again won a similar tournament but at the junior level, the All Japan Junior High School Championships. Graduating from junior high school, Momota studied at the Fukuoka High School.
Momota's presence was increasingly visible as he took part in a bigger race, the 2011 World Junior Championship held in Taiwan. Even though Momota did not make it as a champion, it was a valuable lesson when he lost in the semifinal to the Malaysian Zulfadli Zulkiffli who came out as the 2011 World Junior Champion. Towards the end of 2011, Momota began to compete with his seniors in the All Japan Badminton Championship or 2011 Japan National Championship. Momota lost to Kenichi Tago in the final. Even so, his performance was noticed by the Nippon Badminton Association (NBA). Momota began to join the Japanese national team and was expected to become a future star.
Young Momota continued to learn from his defeats. Momota participated in the 2012 Asian Junior Championship held in Gimcheon, South Korea. Learning from his mistakes in 2011, he avenged his defeat in 2011 by becoming the 2012 Asia Junior Champion after defeating Malaysian representatives, Soong Joo Ven in two straight games, 21-13, 22-20. In the same year, Momota also won the World Junior Championship held in Chiba, Japan. Appearing at home, Momota managed to donate gold in public. In the final round, he beat the mainstay of China, Xue Song through a very tight rubber game match. Momota won 21-17, 19-21, 21-19.
The promising Momota prospect attracted the attention of the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone East Corporation, the badminton club of NTT East which finally succeeded in asking for his hand to join. Momota officially joined the club that raised its name since April 2013. NTT is the largest telecommunications company in Japan. By joining the NTT East club, Momota was ready with the consequences of also working at the company. Momota who was then 19 years old had begun to learn to manage time management in such a way. He began to get used to dividing his time to work, practicing on the Japanese national team, and being active in his club.
In 2013, Momota who started the youth competition was sent to the International Challenge (IC) competition level. Satisfactory results in Momih in the IC satisfaction series in Europe. Momota managed to emerge as champion in Estonia, Sweden, and Austria. Momota has immediately forged in a series of Grand Prix / Gold (GP / GPG) tournaments and even superseries (premiers) throughout 2013. In tournaments with higher castes, Momota could not immediately become a champion. Great achievement does require a process that is not instant, that's the sentence that would be right for Momota who at that time really struggled with often crawl from the qualifying round.
He won all his matches during Japan's maiden Thomas Cup victory in 2014, playing second men's singles behind Kenichi Tago.
In 2015, He was the first Japanese player to win the Singapore Open. By winning that title, he became the first Japanese player to successfully capture a Super Series in Men's Singles and currently holds the record as the youngest Super Series champion in that category. In the 2015 Sudirman Cup, he repeated his feat in Thomas Cup to help Japan secure a spot as a runner-up. He once again made history in the BWF World Championships 2015 held in Jakarta. He became the first Japanese player to win a medal in the Men's Singles category of the prestigious tournament. He made it to the semi-finals, before losing to Chen Long in straight sets. Rounding off the year, he won the 2015 BWF World Superseries Final in Dubai. He competed at the 2014 Asian Games in Incheon as well as the 2016 Badminton Asia Team Championships in Hyderabad.
Momota returned to the Japanese national team at the end of 2017. However, due to a lack of his points, he was not qualified to play in the 2018 All England Open, a significant Super 1000 tournament which was held in March. On 28 April, he won the 2018 Asian Championship which was held in Wuhan, after defeating Chen Long of China in the finals with a score of 21β17, 21β13.
On 5 August, he won the World Championship title in Nanjing, China after beating Shi Yuqi from China in the finals with a score of 21β11, 21β13. He also won 4 BWF World Tour titles: Indonesia Open, Japan Open, Denmark Open, and Fuzhou China Open. Momota became the first Japanese men's singles player to occupy the World number 1 in the BWF World ranking on 27 September.
Momota started the 2019 season by competing at the Malaysia Masters as the first seeds, but his pace stopped by Kenta Nishimoto in the first round. He then reached the final in Indonesia Masters but losing to Anders Antonsen of Denmark. Momota claimed his first title in 2019, by winning the German Open a Super 300 tournament. In March 2019, he won the All England Open beating Viktor Axelsen from Denmark in the finals in 3 sets with a score of 21β11, 15β21, 21β15, becoming the first Japanese man to win the All England Open title.
In April, Momota won his second Asian Championships title in Wuhan, China beating home favorite Shi Yuqi in three games 12β21, 21β18, 21β8. He also won the Singapore and Japan Open titles. In August, he reclaimed his World Champion title, beating Anders Antonsen 21β9 and 21β3. In doing so, Momota became only the fourth player to win back-to-back titles on a short, all-Chinese list that includes Yang Yang, Lin Dan, and Chen Long. After that, he won his first title in China and Korea Opens, also defend his title at Denmark Open and Fuzhou China Open.
Momota closed his stellar 2019 year by winning his 11th title, the World Tour Finals by beating Indonesia's Anthony Sinisuka Ginting 17β21, 21β17, 21β14. Previously in the gala dinner of the same event, he was awarded as the BWF Best Male Player of the Year. He is also nominated as Best Male Athlete by the Association Internationale de la Presse Sportive.
Momota began the 2020 season as the men's singles world No. 1. He competed at the Malaysia Masters as the first seeded, defeated Indian's Kashyap Parupalli and H. S. Prannoy in the first and second round with two straight games, later in the quarter final beat Huang Yuxiang in the rubber games. In the semi-final, he dashed the host's hopes by bowing Lee Zii Jia with a score of 21β10, 21β19. Despite not being at his physical best, Momota pulled off a good show to beat the 2017 World Champion Viktor Axelsen of Denmark 24β22, 21β11 in the final. He extended his head-to-head record over Axelsen to a whopping 14β1. After winning the Malaysia Masters, Momota was involved in an accident on the way to the airport. He suffered a broken nose as well as injuries to his lips and face.
On 7 April 2016, Momota admitted visiting an illegal casino in Tokyo after casino staff reported him gambling there "frequently". In a board meeting, it was revealed that he gambled away 0.5 million yen during 6 visits to the casino with his teammate, Kenichi Tago, who spent 10 million yen after 60 visits to various casinos. The Nippon Badminton Association secretary-general Kinji Zeniya said it would βprobably be impossibleβ for Momota to participate in the Rio 2016 Olympics, with frequent gambling being punishable by law with a prison sentence of up to 3 years. He was banned from playing until late 2017 for this.
Record against year-end Finals finalists, World Championships semi-finalists, and Olympic quarter-finalists. Accurate as of 14 January 2020.
