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Let's take a look at the rackets of top badminton players at the 2021 BWF Badminton World Championships
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So at the last 16 stage, there are still 124 players from 22 countries remaining in the draw across all 5 disciplines
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Racket brands wise, I was able to identify 13 brands which are slightly bigger spread compared to when I looked at the players' rackets at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics
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Check it out here. So to watch all the action from all the BWF streams live, you can use one of the two VPNs I've linked in the description below here to unblock yourself to watch all the action
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So in terms of racket numbers, Yonex completely owns this category with 86 players out of the 124 using their rackets
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Victor was second with 11 players. Leaning was third with 10 players. Forza got the consolation prize with 7 players using their rackets
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Mizuno, Gosen, Flypower and Protech all have 2 players each, and Wilson, Adidas, Apex
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Felit and Babalat all have 1. So if we take a closer look at the Yonex rackets, the Astrox models were the most popular with
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46 players using them, followed by the Nano Flares with 16. The Arc Sabres and the Dwaras have 10 players apiece, and the old but gold Voltrix have 4
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So in terms of models, there were 18 models on show here, slightly less than the Olympics
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which had 20 models. In terms of individual models, three stood out with 10 players using
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them here. The ArcSaber 11, the Astrox 100ZZ and the NanoFlare 700. Pretty fitting that we have a
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head-heavy, even balance and a headlight racket as three of the most popular models at the World
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Championships To look at all this data that I compiled here go to my blog and my website at ckyw forward slash blog I leave the link in the description below Oh yes check out the merch store too while you out there Peace
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Players such as Aaron Chia, Nori Zudin, He Ji Ting, Matthias Christensen
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and Zhao Junpeng were playing with the ARC Sabre 11. And we have Takoro Hoki, Chen Qingchen
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Lakshasen, Akana Yamaguchi, and Wakana Nagahara, who swapped to the 100ZZ from the 88S Pro
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at the Olympics previously. For the Nanoflare 700, we have big name players like Arisa Higashino, Wang Qilin, Lee Sohee, Shin Sung Chan and CK Ready
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using it. One player who I noticed swapped out of the Nanoflare 700 is Michelle Lee of Canada
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She's currently playing with a first generation Astarrox 88D at this world championships. The
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next most popular racket for Yonex was the Astarrox 77 with 8 players and followed by the
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Astrox 88D Pro with seven. The Astrox 77 players are An Se-Yong, Kim Ga-Yoon, Han Yue, Wang Ziyi
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and Isabel Lohao. The Astrox 88D Pro went with Marvin Seidel, Kim So-Yong, So Wee-Yik, Robin
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Tablin, and Li Wen-Mae of China. So if we look at the most recent racket launched by Yonex
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the Astrox 99 Pro, which I've done a review here, there are only three players using it
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Lee Zijia, Lee Chokyu, and Kevin Corden. We probably would have four if Kenta Momoto was playing too
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Old school models such as the Voltric Z-Force 2 were used by Marcus Ellis, Lauren Smith, and H.S
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Pernoi. Let's now take a look at Victor Rackets, and I was able to identify seven models with the
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Aura Speed 90K and Thruster AF having three players apiece using them All the Aura Speed 90k users were Danish players with ex Anders Antonsson and Rasmus Gemke using them alongside Sarah Tigerson For the Thruster F we have Sarah partner Maiken Fuegaard Malaysia Lai Pei Jing and Kirstie Gilmore 2 who had an amazing win against Aya Hori in the earlier rounds
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Other models that had one player each was the JetSpeed S12 by Ashwini Ponapa
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So the Thruster F Enhanced Edition used by Go Sun Huat, which coincidentally is also other pros Greg Mayer's and Jenny Moore's racket of choice too
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Video of the racket back here. We then have the Thruster Ryuga D by Tan Kin Ming
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And this is Jamie Shibon Lai, who is Go Sun Huat's partner, who is using Aura Speed 90F
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And finally, the big superstar Tai Zying is using her Thruster FC Limited as usual, although she's for some reason wearing Yonex clothing and also using Yonex bags
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Is this a sign that a sponsor swap is about to happen? What do you think? Comment down below
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We then move to Li Ning, which has a lot of big name players playing with their rackets
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starting with Yuta Watanabe and Ong Yu Sin with the Aeronaut 9000C
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as well as Teo Yi with the normal Aeronaut 9000. We then have four players using the Tectonic series
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which Kim Afstrup and Poon Pawee Cho Chu Wong using the Tectonic 7K
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Srikanth Kidambi using the Tectonic 9 before rounding out with Sayaka Takahashi using the
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Tectonic 7i. Kim Upstrup's partner Anders Skarb Rasmussen is playing with the leaning calibre 900c
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And finally, Loken Yu, who is making big waves on the circuit over the last two months alongside
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PV Sindhu is playing with the turbocharging 75c For Forza I was able to identify four models from their players who are all Danish French and Norwegian For Hans Christian Wittinghus I believe he was playing with the Power 988S
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And for Fabien and Delphine Del Rue, I believe both of them are playing with the Forza Precision 12000S
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And finally, Mia Blickfeld is using her Aeropower 1088S. So as an added surprise, Indonesian fans should have something to cheer about as Fly Power
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is also represented by previous All England champions Vladimir Ivanov and Ivan Sozinov
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I can see Vladimir is playing with the Fly Power Master 07 and Ivan is using the Enigma 900 version 2
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Another brand that's not present at the Olympics would be Fellet, who are currently sponsoring Go V Shem and Angus Ng Ka Long
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although Angus don't feature on this list as he did not make the last 16
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V Shem is playing with the Fellet woven TJ Power and Tan Wee Keung
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who won an Olympic silver medal with V Shem, is currently playing with APAC's Tweet 8000
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They're all random names, right? Wilson is another brand that tends to only have a single
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player represented deep into tournaments. Misaki Matsutomo of Japan is that representative and
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plays with the Wilson Fierce CX-9000J. What is going on with these names? Speaking of Japan
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Mizuno is another brand that is quite familiar with Japanese players, mostly in terms of shoes
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but rackets are starting to come through. We now see Rin Iwanaga and Kia Nakanishi of Japan
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rocking the Mizuno Fortis 20 in their women's doubles matches. Remember to go check out the data on my website
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and give this video a like and subscribe if you've enjoyed it. I'll see you in the next one
