Thread about Japanese Players

[zeio]

https://www.tabletennisdaily.com/forum/topics/wtt-finals-hong-kong-2025.35838/post-555103

The next generation might be taking over/take over soon and it's not necessarily a bad thing.

Odo > Hirano
Nagasaki > Hayata
Kihara > Ito

Round out with Miwa and Hashimoto and you've got a really solid team.

Obviously Hayata and Ito are still ahead but in terms of technique and potential their juniors may have more to work with.

It's in JTTA's best interest after WTT SCT London/Muscat 2025, XTWC 2025 and WTT F Hong Kong 2025. Doubles will be the main battlefield even though WR will be the major selection criterion.

Of the 3,
Hirano could remain somewhat competitive if she gives it another push given her sturdy body type (here and here) and to my surprise she will play WD with Kihara at Zennihon Takkyu 2026;
Hayata's injury- and disease-prone body type is just unsettling, and 3 years down the road?;
Ito's solo personality and the limit of her playing style and stubby body type are frankly out of tune with XT.

 

[pongfugrasshopper]

It's in JTTA's best interest after WTT SCT London/Muscat 2025, XTWC 2025 and WTT F Hong Kong 2025. Doubles will be the main battlefield even though WR will be the major selection criterion.

Of the 3,
Hirano could remain somewhat competitive if she gives it another push given her sturdy body type (here and here) and to my surprise she will play WD with Kihara at Zennihon Takkyu 2026;
Hayata's injury- and disease-prone body type is just unsettling, and 3 years down the road?;
Ito's solo personality and the limit of her playing style and stubby body type are frankly out of tune with XT.

I don't know about that. I think I saw Hirano wearing a knee and back brace during a practice in some Douyin video. She didn't have any impressive results when she teamed up with Miwa for WD last year. The Miwa/Odo combo are ranked #2 winning 4 titles and making the finals of the Europe Smash. And Hayata has made a final at the China Smash with Joo Cheonhui (beating Miwa/Odo along the way). Not sure about WD, but Mima played exceptionally well with Shinozuka against Franziska/Kaufmann at the XTWC.

 

[NextLevel]

I don't know about that. I think I saw Hirano wearing a knee and back brace during a practice in some Douyin video. She didn't have any impressive results when she teamed up with Miwa for WD last year. The Miwa/Odo combo are ranked #2 winning 4 titles and making the finals of the Europe Smash. And Hayata has made a final at the China Smash with Joo Cheonhui (beating Miwa/Odo along the way). Not sure about WD, but Mima played exceptionally well with Shinozuka against Franziska/Kaufmann at the XTWC.

Keeping in line witn lefty righty matchups, in principle the best doubles teams should feature one of Hayata and Nagasaki. Miwa, Satsuki, Mima, Miyuu, Miu, Sakura ... find the right partner!

 

[pongfugrasshopper]

Keeping in line witn lefty righty matchups, in principle the best doubles teams should feature one of Hayata and Nagasaki. Miwa, Satsuki, Mima, Miyuu, Miu, Sakura ... find the right partner!

Honoka Hashimoto also has a chance, but her road is really difficult because most likely she'll have to find a way to be the 2nd highest ranked player to secure a spot. Despite being highly ranked and able to beat most Chinese players in WTT tournaments, one of Honoka's issues is that all of the the top Japanese women are good against choppers. Additionally, as a chopper, it's hard to pair her in doubles.

I don't know if she is targeting the Olympics, but Kaho Akae is a solid all around player but lacking in international experience compared to her competition. She has 3 Feeder titles and 2 Feeder finals under her belt. She's also played really well in T-League. She beat Miyuu Kihara 3-0 and her only 2 losses were to Miwa and Nagasaki both in deciders. It also helps that she's on Hina's T-League team, and I believe they've paired together in doubles in the past.

[Edit] For completeness, I should add Hitomi Sato. She has been attacking better as evidenced by her last match with Satsuki Odo. She has 5 Feeder titles this year and is up to WR#29.

 

[NextLevel]

Honoka Hashimoto also has a chance, but her road is really difficult because most likely she'll have to find a way to be the 2nd highest ranked player to secure a spot. Despite being highly ranked and able to beat most Chinese players in WTT tournaments, one of Honoka's issues is that all of the the top Japanese women are good against choppers. Additionally, as a chopper, it's hard to pair her in doubles.

I don't know if she is targeting the Olympics, but Kaho Akae is a solid all around player but lacking in international experience compared to her competition. She has 3 Feeder titles and 2 Feeder finals under her belt. She's also played really well in T-League. She beat Miyuu Kihara 3-0 and her only 2 losses were to Miwa and Nagasaki both in deciders. It also helps that she's on Hina's T-League team, and I believe they've paired together in doubles in the past.

Have the rules on how players need to qualify for events come out? If the same players have to play all events (WS, WD and XT), the ln qualifying in Singles os the only way for Honoka to force the JTTA's hand. If IOC can expand the qualification for each event and make them independent of each other, the the path is simple- find someone to sponsor her and Sato and take over the tour.

 

[Takkyu_wa_inochi]

if there are enough TTD fans of Honoka we could sponsor her...

 

[pongfugrasshopper]

Have the rules on how players need to qualify for events come out? If the same players have to play all events (WS, WD and XT), the ln qualifying in Singles os the only way for Honoka to force the JTTA's hand. If IOC can expand the qualification for each event and make them independent of each other, the the path is simple- find someone to sponsor her and Sato and take over the tour.

Haven't seen anything official, but from

IOC puts more medals on the table

With an unprecedented six-gold sweep in table tennis now possible, and more medal events added, China's sports community has embraced both the opportunities and challenges brought by the new sports program at LA28.

www.chinadailyhk.com

With the total athlete quotas in table tennis still capped at 172, as same as in Paris, each National Olympic Committee will still have a maximum three paddlers in each gender qualified for LA28, meaning even the strongest contenders, like Team China, can only enter one pair in each of the doubles competitions, with its core players very likely to feature in singles and the mixed team events as well.​

So probably not independent WD. From JTTA's POV the only thing we know is that top 2 highest world ranking will be in singles. In any case, with all of the Olympic hopefuls this cycle, it's going to be the most competitive race to the Olympics we've seen.

 

[NextLevel]

Haven't seen anything official, but from

IOC puts more medals on the table

With an unprecedented six-gold sweep in table tennis now possible, and more medal events added, China's sports community has embraced both the opportunities and challenges brought by the new sports program at LA28.

www.chinadailyhk.com

With the total athlete quotas in table tennis still capped at 172, as same as in Paris, each National Olympic Committee will still have a maximum three paddlers in each gender qualified for LA28, meaning even the strongest contenders, like Team China, can only enter one pair in each of the doubles competitions, with its core players very likely to feature in singles and the mixed team events as well.​

So probably not independent WD. From JTTA's POV the only thing we know is that top 2 highest world ranking will be in singles. In any case, with all of the Olympic hopefuls this cycle, it's going to be the most competitive race to the Olympics we've seen.

That's going to be tough. Other than maybe Miwa, there is going to be a lot of.clawing and scratching. Also.means one doubles team per country. In the infamous words of Tony Stark, '"Not a great plan!"

 

[Takkyu_wa_inochi]

Tomokazu wins the WTT Grand Finals ! Who remembers he also won the Grand Finals in 2018 aged 15, though they were still called the ITTF Grand Finals at the time ?

 

[mikeytt]

Togami lost 3-2 to Jorgic in today’s bundesliga match. This is his first loss of the season

 

[zeio]

Tomokazu wins the WTT Grand Finals ! Who remembers he also won the Grand Finals in 2018 aged 15, though they were still called the ITTF Grand Finals at the time ?

Fun fact:
Other than FZD, Harimoto is the only other player with ITTF WTGF and WTT F titles, and youngest-ever for both.

Miwa back in 2018 on surpassing his brother, still a long road ahead.

 

[JackJohnson]

Tomokazu wins the WTT Grand Finals ! Who remembers he also won the Grand Finals in 2018 aged 15, though they were still called the ITTF Grand Finals at the time ?

Which players were playing that tournament. Was there no Ma Long, Zhang Jike, Xu Xin, FZD?

 

[zeio]

Calderano beat FZD but then lost to Harimoto. Mizutani beat LJK but then lost to LGY, who beat XX and was the other finalist.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_ITTF_World_Tour_Grand_Finals

 

[Catenaccio]

WTT Finals HK

MS SF
Tomoko Harimoto vs LSD 4-3 (10,4,-10,-10,6,-7,8)

MS F
Tomoko Harimoto vs Truls Moregard 4-2 (8,-5,9,10,-12,2)

With his win Harimoto will be No. 4 again when the rankings are updated on Tuesday.

Sayaka Hirano and Kenji Matsudaira analysed the QF match between Harimoto and Lebrun

 

[pongfugrasshopper]

It's going to be a busy January for the Japanese players.

WTT Champions Doha 2026 1/7-1/11

MEN	WOMEN
Tomokazu Harimoto	Miwa Harimoto
Sora Matsushima	Mima Ito
Shunsuke Togami	Hina Hayata
Yukiya Uda	Honoka Hashimoto

WTT Star Contender Doha 2026 1/13-1/18

MEN	WOMEN
Tomokazu Harimoto	Satsuki Odo
Shunsuke Togami	Miyuu Kihara
Hiroto Shinozuka	Hitomi Sato
Ryoichi Yoshiyama	Sakura Yokoi
Kazuhiro Yoshiyama	Miu Hirano
Maharu Yoshiyama	Sachi Aoki

Also, the All Japan runs 1/20-1/25 and the All Japan Doubles runs 1/29-2/1.

 

[NextLevel]

https://www.tabletennisdaily.com/forum/topics/hayata-but-i-was-just-too-stupid-if-i-had-been-smarter-i-definitely-would-have-won-the-match-780.35128/post-555851

 

[pongfugrasshopper]

I woke up too late to watch this live, but the NP Mallets (Odo/Yokoi/Sato) defeated NL Red Elf (Hina/JCH/Kaho). The biggest revelations was that Yokoi avenged her only T-League singles loss by beating JCH 3-0. Sato, who has really improved her offense, won the victory match over Kaho. Hina beat Saki Shibata 3-0. Odo did not play as she injured her shoulder last week in her match vs. Miyuu Kihara but was still able to beat Kihara 3-0 avenging her SC Muscat loss.

 

[pongfugrasshopper]

T League announces first overseas tournament to open next season in Taiwan!​

@Tony's Table Tennis , what do you know about this... can you comment on this, please?

 

[NextLevel]

Civil War in German league.

 

[JackJohnson]

T League announces first overseas tournament to open next season in Taiwan!​

@Tony's Table Tennis , what do you know about this... can you comment on this, please?

I would love to see Taipei hold more ITTF/WTT table tennis events in the future. I feel like they deserve at least to host a WTT Champions event there due to LYJ, CIC and KCJ.