Tomorrow's SF match between Hirano and Ishikawa will have huge Olympic implications. They are only separated by 5 points in the World Rankings Points for January 2020 right now. (Hirano has 9590 points while Ishikawa has 9585). The winner will obviously gain the lead in the race for one of those 2 singles spots, but the benefit of winning the match has huge rest-of-the-year benefits.
For Ishikawa, a win allows her to overtake Hirano for the 2nd Olympic singles spot and allows her to maintain her current status as Japanese No. 1 based on WR.
For Hirano, a win not only gives her more breathing room with regard to her lead over Ishikawa, but also sets her up for a Top 4 seeding in the World Cup. This would effectively negate Ishikawa's advantage of meeting a Chinese opponent one round later than Hirano had Hirano still been seeded 5th. Furthermore, if Hirano can win the whole tournament, she will break into the top 8 in current WR while Ishikawa drops to 9th. This would mean that for the Swedish and German Opens, Hirano won't meet a top Chinese player till the QF, while Ishikawa will likely meet one in the R16. Hirano's seeding as compared to Ito's and Ishikawa's seedings has been one of her biggest obstacles in her race towards an Olympic Singles spot, but this one win would remedy that problem for the rest of the year.
I commend both players for stepping up when the situation called for it: Ishikawa for getting her revenge on He Zhuojia and Hirano for coming back from down 0-3 to save her Olympic hopes. I hope to see the same or an even greater fighting spirit from both players tomorrow.
