Clarisse Agbegnenou stars for France

World champion Clarisse Agbegnenou (FRA) defeated Osaka Grand Slam silver medallist Nabekura Nami (JPN) to win her first Masters title in the last contest on day one of the season-ending competition in China. Nabekura put up a credible effort as she forced the contest into golden score before failing with an ambitious sumi-gaeshi as Agbegnenou landed on top and applied a pin for 20 seconds and ippon.

In the first semi-final world champion Agbegnenou submitted world silver medallist Tashiro Miku (JPN) with shime-waza. The French fighter powered past Tashiro in a rematch of the World Championships final having led by a osoto-makikomi before wrapping up a comprehensive win on the ground.

In the second semi-final Olympic champion Tina Trstenjak (SLO) fell to Nabekura after three minutes of golden score. The Japanese judoka scored a waza-ari with a sumi-gaeshi to guarantee a place on the medal podium.

In the first bronze medal contest Trstenjak prevailed against Abu Dhabi Grand Slam winner Juul Franssen (NED) who was given her marching orders for a shido for passivity which was her third penality. Slovenian star Trstenjak was surprisingly making her first appearance at the Masters and unsurprisingly made it count as she came away with a hard-fought bronze medal to retain second place on the World Ranking List.                  

The second bronze medal contest saw Tashiro score twice without reply against former European Games winner Martyna Trajdos (GER). Japan’s number one held down Trajdos with osaekomi-waza for 12 seconds to open the scoring and then threw with an ouchi-gari for a second and match-winning waza-ari score.