PETALING JAYA: Former world No. 1 men singles shuttler Kento Momota is set to make a return to competitive badminton at the Lin Dan Cup in Xian, China from July 25-27.

The 30-year-old great from Japan has been used as one of the main figures in the promotional poster produced by the hosts.

The tournament, founded by badminton legend and two-time Olympic Games champion Lin Dan, offers a lucrative total prize purse of 850,000 yuan (approximately RM500,000).

Besides Momota, several other foreign names are also slated to compete, including 2019 World Championship bronze medallist Kantaphon Wangcharoen, South Korea’s Cho Geon-yeop, Ireland’s Nhat Nguyen and Japan’s Riki Takei.

Malaysia will also be represented at the tournament by Tan Jia Jie and Cheam June Wei.

Momota once captivated the badminton world with his remarkable dominance in 2019, winning 11 titles and suffering just six defeats out of 73 matches that year.

He also won back-to-back world titles in 2018 (Nanjing) and 2019 (Basel).

However, his career took a downturn after a car accident in 2020 following his Malaysian Masters victory, which severely affected his performance.

The Japanese star eventually made the difficult decision to retire in April last year at the age of 29.