We are in Tokyo for the World Badminton Championships
and we're about to bring you the best vlog we've ever done
but first let's rewind for a minute
so today is Sunday the 21st of august and we actually only found out 13 days ago that we were
playing this tournament now putting aside our lack of preparation the first problem was that
we needed a visa to get into Japan and these take five working days to arrive and we only had seven
days until we had to leave yes so as soon as we heard this we rang the Japanese embassy in London
and they told us that they didn't have any visa appointments for two weeks there's no
appointments for two weeks and that we'd have to ring back every day until they had a cancellation
but as soon as we mentioned the World Badminton Championships they were kind enough to give
us an appointment in four hours time! Then the real stress hit we live around
three and a half hours from london and if we didn't make this visa appointment then
we wouldn't be going to Japan but luckily we somehow made it in time
so next came the second problem we had to book the most expensive fights we've ever seen
i'm not pressing that button you can press it and at this point in the story some of you might be
thinking that is a crazy amount of money is this really worth it? And don't worry we thought exactly
the same! I don't know whether we should do it! But we only have a limited time on this planet and also a limited time to play badminton
we can earn that money back over the next few years but we might never get the chance
to play in a World Championships in Tokyo ever again so we have to do it! Yes so we're going to
take you with us on our journey throughout this world championships so let's get to it :D
Did you hear that? Be brave!
so it's now about 6:30 in the evening and what have we been up to today?
well as you just saw we had a hit in the main hall this morning and we're just going to talk a
little bit more about that because you might have seen that from one end of the hall we were really
struggling to get a good length in our lifts we were trying to hit it almost as hard as we could
and the shuttle still struggled to get past the front doubles service line whereas from the other
end of the hall it felt like we were just tapping the shuttle and it was flying out of the back
and yeah after our training session we had a shower went out for some food and we've
just spent the last couple of hours preparing the youtube video which has literally just gone live
so if you've not checked that out yet we'll include a link either up here or down in the
description below and that video was giving three tips on how to improve
the most and very quickly in just one week of training and we were speaking from experience
there because this is exactly what we did in the preparation for this tournament, the World
Championships because we only had one week's notice so the plan for the rest of the evening
is to go out for some food in the city center over there and do a bit of sightseeing let's go
morning guys so today is our last day of preparation before we play
our first match tomorrow so we're about to head off to training and
then we'll watch some matches after that and we'll catch up with you later!
so Greg what have we been up to so far today? So as we said earlier we went to train which
was really good, had a good quality session and then we watched some of our german club teammates the
Grimley twins and Adam Mendrek alongside our own teammate and good friend Toby Penty play
oh that's good yes toby! Then we just got the bus back and it was a very exciting bus journey
and I'll let jenny tell you about it yeah so a bit of a random one I ended up sitting next to
He Bingjiao on the bus on the way back and she turns to me and said she watches our
youtube channel so pretty surreal moment she actually ended up started playing our videos
you agree? Yes service is easy but it's very important! Yeah! So many people can
cannot do a good service! Yeah yeah it's true, it was a pretty surreal moment to think that her and also
Zheng Siwei about half an hour before that had told us that he also watched our youtube videos
so pretty crazy to think that people of that caliber top top professional players
are watching our YouTube videos! Yeah you actually said to her that you predicted her for
our Patreon prediction tournament as well I did no pressure on her exactly right!
Greg is going for the big japanese things
go back back
oh
We just want to apologise that we didn't vlog this morning as we were fully focused on
preparing for our match but as you might have saw from the clips we've just put in we won
which was good um a good match convincing first set and a let our kind of concentration go a little
bit in the second but managed to get the win now we're actually heading back into training
to do some practice for our match tomorrow so that we're sharp and ready to go so let's show you inside!
so those two courts down there are where people knock up before going on to the match
and the rest of the courts you have to book out
waiting and then Hendra Setiawan the GOAT men's doubles player, we've used them in so many clips
over the years he just came to do his drying so yeah we spoke to him for quite a bit he was
such a nice guy and got a photo and also asked him to ask you to SMASH the subscribe button!
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We do together? Yes! Smash the subscribe button :D Perfect!
he said his English wasn't very good in front of the camera but we chatted with him about his
youtube channel and lots of other things we were just so like intrigued to speak to a legend of the
game like that so yeah if you want to check out his youtube channel we'll include a link in the
description below and sorry to our sponsors Victor and TRME, all our clothes are in the wash so
we're not wearing their tops but he was in Victor which is good to see! Good evening everyone so it's
now around half past nine we spent the last few hours finalising a youtube video which Greg is
actually going through the final changes now. We went out for dinner with the rest of the English team
and we've also just done our match analysis on the Malaysian pair that we are playing tomorrow we
are fourth match on on the third court so in the morning all we'll really do is have some breakfast
and then head over straight to the hall ready for our match so we'll catch you after that bye
so unfortunately we lost our match this morning against the 11th seeds from Malaysia
in all honesty we were both quite disappointed, not as much with the result but more just the level
that we brought to the match and our performance we definitely both thought we could have individually
played a lot better for me personally when Lai was hitting those really tight net shots to the tape
and I was trying to brush them or kill them I missed three or four of those in the first set
and at this top level you can't afford to make those kinds of mistakes and unfortunately that
showed in the scoreline at the end but to not be completely negative I was generally quite
pleased that even though I did miss the first couple of those I still kept going for them
because that's probably the worst thing I could have done was if I missed the first one or two
then I start being really passive and lifting those net shots rather than still showing
aggressive intentions and good intentions because then she feels pressured that she has to play
these really really perfect tight net shots every time otherwise I will be killing them on the floor
so yeah generally still a bit disappointed but not much time to dwell on it because actually as
we left the hall on the way back to the hotel we were stopped by Gill Clark who asked us if
we wanted to commentate on some matches later this evening so we are now back at the hall
and Greg is about to start doing a men's doubles match and then I'll be on a mixed
doubles match later alongside Gill the goat of commentating let's see how we get on!
so I'm about to go and join Gill Clark the legend in the commentary box and I've got
to be honest I'm quite nervous it's definitely out of both of our comfort zones we've never
done commentary before it's always just on video where we can cut things and change them later on
but yeah very nervous but I think you've got to push yourself out of your comfort zone at times
to learn new skills and develop so yeah as Phineas Taylor Barnum says in The Greatest
Showman comfort is the enemy of progress 'comfort, the enemy of progress' so yeah I think I'm up!
and we turn our attention now too mens doubles
wow that was intense but a really enjoyable experience I found it like very tiring considering
I only did one match and Gill and the other commentators do match after match after match
obviously they've had a lot more practice but yeah I really enjoyed it and thanks for all the
comments we've had already of people watching on the world stream it was a very pressurised
situation as I said before the match quite nervous but yeah good experience, enjoy it Jenny?
Yeah it was a lot of fun! Yeah, is that it? Her speaking's done
and we're gonna wrap up the vlog here we really hope you've enjoyed coming with
us on our trip to Tokyo it's been an amazing week hasn't it? Yeah very good week hopefully
you guys have enjoyed it, a bit of an Insight into the behind the scenes
of the World Championships we certainly have and we'll hopefully see you on, no... SMASH
the subscribe button! Make sure you SMASH the subscribe button if you haven't already
sorry it's been a long day! And we'll see you on another video very soon bye :-)