JTTA: Selection System to be Revamped for Paris 2024

[pongfugrasshopper]

Chen Xingtong and Lin Gaoyuan were added as Host Wildcards to Star Contender Bangkok. Will be a good test for Hayata and company.

 

[NextLevel]

Chen Xingtong and Lin Gaoyuan were added as Host Wildcards to Star Contender Bangkok. Will be a good test for Hayata and company.

Espionage never ends...

 

[pongfugrasshopper]

Selection trial for ATTC 2024 and Asian Continental Qualification for WTTC 2025, 2024/6/20-21
https://jtta.or.jp/tour/25502
https://jtta.s3.ap-northeast-1.amaz...ajia_2025world_selection_criteria_0408ver.pdf

Ito's name is not there, which means she intends to get her spot through WR. Hayata, Hirano and Harimoto get automatically selected because of Paris 2024. The 4th spot goes to the winner of the selection trial. The 5th spot goes to the next highest WR. Kihara and Nagasaki gotta work harder or only 1 of them will get to go.

Bumping this as it starts in about 12 hours.
I'll probably only be able to watch (TV Tokyo YouTube) the 1st round of matches tonight and then Women's SF tomorrow night.

 

[pongfugrasshopper]

Semifinalists
Women: Sakura Yokoi vs Hitomi Sato and Satsuki Odo vs. Honoka Hashimoto
All four semi-finalists are on the same T-League team: NP Mallets! No Miyus. Kihara lost to Sato. Nagasaki played poorly and ended up with a 2-2 record losing to Misuzu Takeya and Honoka Hashimoto. With the Miyus losing, Mima Ito will be competing with them in world ranking to determine the final spot 2 weeks before entry deadline of 2024 Asian Championships and 2 weeks before entry deadline of 2025 World Championships.

Men: Sora Matsushima vs Mizuki OIkawa and Kazuki Yoshiyama vs. Kenji Matsudaira
I didn't see what happened, but according to the group results, Yukiya Uda was 1st and Oikawa was 2nd in their group. However, Oikawa is showing up as the semi-finalist. Perhaps injury to Yukiya Uda? [Edit] I believe the group stage final positions was incorrectly reported. Uda and Oikawa were in a 3 way tie with Kazuki Hamada, and I guess Oikawa won the tie breaker.

Edit: Links for matches later Today:
Ch1:

Ch2:

 

[pongfugrasshopper]

Wow, according to this article, Kihara's racket failed inspection prior to playing Sato, and she had to use her coach's racket.

 

[driversbeat]

Is there a reason why athletes don't prepare a second racket? I remember Zhang Yining saying that her backup racket was like 'the bottom of a shoe' in her match against Feng Tianwei at the Olympics. Also, can the racket restriction rules be relaxed? It's not like the weaker/tactically poorer player is suddenly going to win just because their rubbers are 0.1mm thicker. If anything thicker will result in less control.

 

[backspacer]

I thought they all had spare ones?

 

[NextLevel]

Is there a reason why athletes don't prepare a second racket? I remember Zhang Yining saying that her backup racket was like 'the bottom of a shoe' in her match against Feng Tianwei at the Olympics. Also, can the racket restriction rules be relaxed? It's not like the weaker/tactically poorer player is suddenly going to win just because their rubbers are 0.1mm thicker. If anything thicker will result in less control.

There isn't a good reason not to have a second racket other than that you want to play with what you have been practicing with prior to the match. And no, for players at that level, those small issues can make a huge difference. In fact, people can oppose raising thickness limits because they don't want to increase the speed of the game.

The post below comes to mind every time now I read about racket testing and failures this year:

You're Tearing Me Apart

Articles about table tennis subjects related to NCTTA, USATT, ITTF, rules, officiating, equipment, development, coaching, etc.

blog.kaginism.com

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

from experience, the spare rackets probably has the same issue with the first 1st racket, so it would be silly to submit the same issue again and then get disqualified for 2 failures

 

[pongfugrasshopper]

Odo and Sato into the Finals. The way Odo plays against defense might be the best in the world in the women's game. Very hard to come back when she's able to gauge that FH smash over and over. And she also has a flat drive on the BH for winners as well. Odo beat Sato in the Finals at Feeder Cappadocia 3-0, and I think the same will happen in the finals. She's basically continued where she left off in WTT (excluding her match with Hayata).

 

[NextLevel]

Odo and Sato into the Finals. The way Odo plays against defense might be the best in the world in the women's game. Very hard to come back when she's able to gauge that FH smash over and over. And she also has a flat drive on the BH for winners as well. Odo beat Sato in the Finals at Feeder Cappadocia 3-0, and I think the same will happen in the finals. She's basically continued where she left off in WTT (excluding her match with Hayata).

That Yokoi is Sato's teammate but couldn't beat Sato doesn't bode well for.her long term prospects. She is not supposed to lose to.defensive teammates who she has regular practice against so this might be a sign of her not having the game reading skills to.perform at the very highest levels.

 

[pongfugrasshopper]

Wow was I wrong about Odo vs. Sato. Sato's plan for the Odo smash is to countersmash it. Sato playing amazing.

Edit: Odo now targeting BH corner to prevent Sato countersmash in game 3. Odo now has to deal with high pressure from Sato.

 

[pongfugrasshopper]

Wow! What an amazing match. Satsuki Odo comes from behind to win it! So many amazing rallies .... this super high level attack vs. super high level defense should be seen at WTT matches. Sure hope Sato and Hashimoto and of course Odo get to go to more WTT tournaments.

 

[Takkyu_wa_inochi]

Wow! What an amazing match. Satsuki Odo comes from behind to win it! So many amazing rallies .... this super high level attack vs. super high level defense should be seen at WTT matches. Sure hope Sato and Hashimoto and of course Odo get to go to more WTT tournaments.

Incredible !!! Matsudaira is back at World champs !
He could beat Sora Matsushima 3-2 in the Final after beating Kazuki Yoshiyama 3-0 in SF

But nope it’s not Kenta but Kenji the elder brother at 35yo

Legendary upset and great for him. But really bad for JTTA…
He inherited the easiest of group (other veteran Takakiwa and relatively unknown younger players Ono Watanabe Ogihara)

Sora choked. He almost came back from 0-2 down but in the 5th Kenji got the head start and the pressure was too much

 

[mikeytt]

Happy for Kenji to get another chance even at his age, have always liked him

 

[Takkyu_wa_inochi]

(WTTC 2025 & Asia champs 2024 selection trials finals)
Kenji Matsudaira v Sora Matsushima

Satsuki Odo v Hitomi Sato

 

[zeio]

Same projection for Matsushima 9 months later. "Upward correction" for Odo 2 months later.

https://www.tabletennisdaily.com/forum/topics/26th-asian-table-tennis-championship.31859/post-422809

If Harimoto and F. Lebrun had not achieved so much in senior events at 14/15 and 15/16, respectively (the latter is only 7 months older than Matsushima), then Matsushima would have been given the child prodigy treatment like LYJ back in 2017/2018. But as of now, Matsushima being a good player won't cut it. With the revamped selection system now in place, he must become better than at least Uda, Togami, Shinozuka, Tanaka, and R. Yoshiyama to stand a chance for LA 2028, when he will be 21. If he doesn't by then, who knows how he will turn out for Brisbane 2032, when he will be 25. I mean look at Ito, who won't turn 23 until this October, already looks like a washed-up veteran.

https://www.tabletennisdaily.com/forum/topics/wtt-2024-feeder-events.33518/post-453335

Enough for me to tell that Odo is stronger than Yokoi. Still need more time to tell if both of them will really be passed over for LA 2028.

https://www.tabletennisdaily.com/forum/topics/wtt-2024-feeder-events.33518/post-453367

If you ask me, the levels displayed by Odo and Yokoi up to this point won't be enough for LA 2028. The time I need is actually not for them, but rather to see how far Ojio Yuna/Mende/Aoki/Takamori/Takeya will grow 3 years from now (not 4 but 3 as JTTA has the tradition of announcing the lineup in January of the Olympic year).

To be honest, if they didn't convert their potential in this cycle, it's not realistic to expect Odo and Yokoi (like Kihara and Nagasaki) to fulfill it in the next cycle, when the next wave will show explosive growth. So the 4 of them are caught between a rock and a hard place.

 

[Janard]

(WTTC 2025 & Asia champs 2024 selection trials finals)
Kenji Matsudaira v Sora Matsushima

Satsuki Odo v Hitomi Sato

Is Matsushima unusually tall and/or Matsudaira more modest in height ? Great win by the latter though.

 

[pongfugrasshopper]

"I've been practicing with the sole focus on beating the higher-ranked players" - Comments from Satsuki Ooto, winner of Asian Championship qualifying tournament

 

[NextLevel]

This is a year early for WTTC 2025. But Sora clearly messed up this one. It might have dire consequences if he cannot qualify by ranking. But he is in prime position to do so do it might not matter in the end.