Home » PLAYER PROFILE: MAYU MATSUMOTO & WAKANA NAGAHARA

PLAYER PROFILE: MAYU MATSUMOTO & WAKANA NAGAHARA

Matsumoto Mayu and Nagahara Wakana BWF player profile

The fifth-ranked duo of Matsumoto Mayu and Nagahara Wakana have an innate bond between them owing to their Hokkaido roots.

Debuting as a pair at the 2013 Asian Junior Championships in Malaysia, Matsumoto and Nagahara won their first ranking title at the Smiling Fish International the following year. However, the wait for another silverware lasted until 2017, when they outlasted fellow Japanese tandem of Hoshi Chisato and Shinoya Naru to clinch the Canadian Open crown. 

That set up a brilliant 2018 in which they won their first world championship in China, beating compatriots Fukushima Yuki and Hirota Sayaka in a three-game marathon. In the year after, they defended their throne against the same pair in yet another drawn out finale.

The pair of world titles led to their career high world number-one ranking, which they held for a cumulative 27 weeks.

Matsumoto saw action sans Nagahara at the Uber Cup in Aarhus last year, where she compiled a 5-1 record with different partners, as Japan was dethroned by China in the final.