Harimoto defeats Fan Zhendong | Asian Cup 2018

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Feel free to ignore me, but here's a tieba thread titled "Turns out Ishikawa is the weakest link on the JNT" and not one disagreement, sharing their opinions what Ishikawa lacks that Ito and Hirano have against China.
 
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Feel free to ignore me, but here's a tieba thread titled "Turns out Ishikawa is the weakest link on the JNT" and not one disagreement, sharing their opinions what Ishikawa lacks that Ito and Hirano have against China.

You keep missing the point - how many JNT players are repeatedly beating the Chinese? Ishikawa is to take the best arguments against her the worst of a bunch of losers. People should stop acting like she is a loser amongst a bunch of winners. She won exactly the same number of games in that final as Miu Hirano did, and Zhu Yuling is probably the hardest matchup on the team for a non-Chinese player.
 
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Ishikawa simply lacks the power to threaten the top CNT players. Nothing she can do about it, whereas Hirano et. al. have a chance to improve and seriously challenge the Chinese. So it would make sense to sit Ishikawa against China and let the others get experience playing them even though they're currently not likely to do much better. But Ishikawa certainly deserves to play against any other country.
 
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Ishikawa can beat almost anyone but the top Chinese players indeed her track record is terrible against Ding Ning, Liu Shiwen, Li Xiaoxia, Zhu Yuling or Chen Meng, - we can add also a few other older players to that list.

I believe what she lacks most is 1) power. we can see a few times she has difficulty to finish her points with a FH drive/smash. 2) a big victory in her early career. If when she was young she beat even ONCE a Chinese player it would have given more confidence. She's been beaten hard again and again, even when she was at her top, and when she starts a new match, its putting weight on her and giving extra confidence to her opponents. 3) her tactics. She wins non-Chinese because she is super-consistent, more than anyone else. On the other hand she doesn't need to play very agressive all points, but maybe thats what it takes to beat the Chinese, because they are all even more consistent than her. She has to take more risks, play differently but Im feeling she's not been trying to go out too much of her usual tactics against the Chinese.

I think the closest she ever got was leading 2-0 and something like 8-6 against LI Xiaoxia in a team event final. but LI got a lucky edge ball and from there she came back to win it 3-2. so I could add 4) (lack of ) luck as another explanation to her records

to NL, Ishikawa said in the post-match interview that she played very very badly and felt sorry about it to her teammates and her fans.

to Andy. ZHU YL was perhaps the player she had the most chance to win against the odds, but it didn't work. I doubt Hayata would have won it, but she's young and will have her time.
 
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Ishikawa can beat almost anyone but the top Chinese players indeed her track record is terrible against Ding Ning, Liu Shiwen, Li Xiaoxia, Zhu Yuling or Chen Meng, - we can add also a few other older players to that list.

I believe what she lacks most is 1) power. we can see a few times she has difficulty to finish her points with a FH drive/smash. 2) a big victory in her early career. If when she was young she beat even ONCE a Chinese player it would have given more confidence. She's been beaten hard again and again, even when she was at her top, and when she starts a new match, its putting weight on her and giving extra confidence to her opponents. 3) her tactics. She wins non-Chinese because she is super-consistent, more than anyone else. On the other hand she doesn't need to play very agressive all points, but maybe thats what it takes to beat the Chinese, because they are all even more consistent than her. She has to take more risks, play differently but Im feeling she's not been trying to go out too much of her usual tactics against the Chinese.

I think the closest she ever got was leading 2-0 and something like 8-6 against LI Xiaoxia in a team event final. but LI got a lucky edge ball and from there she came back to win it 3-2. so I could add 4) (lack of ) luck as another explanation to her records

to NL, Ishikawa said in the post-match interview that she played very very badly and felt sorry about it to her teammates and her fans.

to Andy. ZHU YL was perhaps the player she had the most chance to win against the odds, but it didn't work. I doubt Hayata would have won it, but she's young and will have her time.

Great post, TWI.

But whose track record is not terrible against all those players??? Mima Ito? Miu Hirano? Hina Hayata?

My point is not that in some theoretical world that Hayata might have a better chance vs Zhu Yuling than Kasumi Ishikawa. My point is that people should stop blaming Ishikawa for what she isn't and appreciate more of who she is. She is the player that the Chinese have studied the most so she is going to do worst by default. The ones who haven't studied her as much, the younger generation, often lose to her. It is not just power, it is preparation.
 
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https://mao.5ch.net/test/read.cgi/pingpong/1525527077/
Discussion on 5ch, arguably the largest generic forums(like reddit) in Japan, posts #400-500 wondering why Baba puts in that linep, starting #800 people wondered why not let Hayata play, later on people commenting Ishikawa is a dead weight.
 
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I don't feel the same at all about Ishikawa.

Yes it was a bit disheartening to see her play, not because she is a dead weight (she isn't) but because she should trust her game more even when it comes to CNT.

Instead of playing in her own way, she went down the faster-and-harder-than-the-Chinese route like the rest of her team mates. And it doesn't look like she can do that. She made many mistakes by going for that little bit more power, trying to take the ball that little bit earlier. She stands half a step further away from the table than her teammates and it seems to make a world of difference.

She also got caught wide open with the pace she gave to the opponent. She couldn't follow at that pace.

(Yes, we are all nobodies talking about a level of play much beyond us, but still I'll give my opinion. :rolleyes:)
(She also had trouble with ZYL serves and it didn't help. Anyway.)

I didn't see her getting destroyed when she played just a bit softer but a bit more dynamic, finding angles, setting up counters, and ripping the occasional ball. When she waits for the ball to reach her, her consistency ramps up enormously, and she can either play at full power or control the pace/placement. Step in and accelerate when the opponent is out of position. In fact it is the only time she seemed to get back in the game (she was down 0-7 I believe, and came back a bit into the game, 7-9; most of the last game she goes back to whatever she was doing before).

Imo she has a more versatile, all round game than her teammates. Why not stake the match on what she does well? She might lose because it doesn't work against CNT? Big deal... 1) She is the clear underdog to start with. 2) Random joes on the internet and maybe closer to home are going to criticise her anyway after she loses. 3) She is almost sure to lose if she plays fast and hard against CNT, even though she can do it well enough to be #3. Basically I don't understand what the game plan was, playing in such a way for the opponent to outclass her and hoping on ZYL miraculously choking? Is this really what the staff around her advised? Maybe she should go on an internship with JOW instead! :p

Regardless, she is still one of the best in the world and probably the most reliable player in the Japanese team.
 
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Soo said Hirano's too quick for her own good sometimes. Guess what? I wrote about this in late 2016 when Hirano came back from the CTTSL to attend the WJTTC in Capetwon. Rui Nakazawa(Wang Rui) actually touched on the stability issue in 2017, saying that Hirano would drop random matches for no apparent reason after winning the World Cup.

Soo said LSW was better technically, but we all know about that. That's why Ito's tactics was really simple - all-out attack. It's either you or I here, essentially how Hirano achieved it at the ATTC 2017 when everything clicked. That's the only way they could have a chance against China.

Not so for Ishikawa. Hirano managed to keep the score close, but it was so obvious many couldn't help but notice Ishikawa couldn't even impose her own game on ZYL. "ZYL is the hardest to play" doesn't cut it. Ishikawa has the most wins against ZYL in her entire career. 2 wins 11 losses, 1 at Austrian Open 2013, 1 in team at WJTTC 2010. She hasn't scored any wins over the other core players. Soo said Ishikawa is an all-round player, but the Chinese are even better at that. She can't play all-out attack like Ito and Hirano. Soo also stressed China is so familiar with her. That's why folks in China and Japan agree she poses the least threat against the CNT and give her such nicknames as "CNT maid" and "Chinese complex".

Here is my prediction. Ishikawa will do everything within her power to save her WR until Jan 2019. Beating China? Forget it. Not at the top of her Real-To-Do list but she will keep chanting that on TV.
 
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I guess people can watch Soo's commentary if it is still available and form their own conclusions as to whether it justifies your self congratulation. Her analysis and evaluation of Hirano was more derogatory IMO.

It's really funny how people cite matches from 7 years ago and use them as evidence for what is possible in today's game. Zhu Yuling is the hardest to play is very reasonable because she plays extremely consistent defense. The all out attack style is much harder to impose on Zhu Yuling because she brings way more balls back with variation so you have to be ready to play multiple shots.

I wish by some happenstance that Mima Ito or Miu Hirano was permitted to play Kim Song I. Maybe Ishikawa would have been better appreciated after that.

Japan can leave Ishikawa off the team. I suspect that given the strength of the Hayata-Ito pairing, they will do it if Hayata starts getting better singles results. But the core issue is not whether Japan can beat China without Kasumi. Its whether Japan is really realistic about what Kasumi brings to the team vs what they imagine she takes away from it.
 
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I don't feel the same at all about Ishikawa.

Yes it was a bit disheartening to see her play, not because she is a dead weight (she isn't) but because she should trust her game more even when it comes to CNT.

Instead of playing in her own way, she went down the faster-and-harder-than-the-Chinese route like the rest of her team mates. And it doesn't look like she can do that. She made many mistakes by going for that little bit more power, trying to take the ball that little bit earlier. She stands half a step further away from the table than her teammates and it seems to make a world of difference.

She also got caught wide open with the pace she gave to the opponent. She couldn't follow at that pace.

(Yes, we are all nobodies talking about a level of play much beyond us, but still I'll give my opinion. :rolleyes:)
(She also had trouble with ZYL serves and it didn't help. Anyway.)

I didn't see her getting destroyed when she played just a bit softer but a bit more dynamic, finding angles, setting up counters, and ripping the occasional ball. When she waits for the ball to reach her, her consistency ramps up enormously, and she can either play at full power or control the pace/placement. Step in and accelerate when the opponent is out of position. In fact it is the only time she seemed to get back in the game (she was down 0-7 I believe, and came back a bit into the game, 7-9; most of the last game she goes back to whatever she was doing before).

Imo she has a more versatile, all round game than her teammates. Why not stake the match on what she does well? She might lose because it doesn't work against CNT? Big deal... 1) She is the clear underdog to start with. 2) Random joes on the internet and maybe closer to home are going to criticise her anyway after she loses. 3) She is almost sure to lose if she plays fast and hard against CNT, even though she can do it well enough to be #3. Basically I don't understand what the game plan was, playing in such a way for the opponent to outclass her and hoping on ZYL miraculously choking? Is this really what the staff around her advised? Maybe she should go on an internship with JOW instead! :p

Regardless, she is still one of the best in the world and probably the most reliable player in the Japanese team.

Great analysis dude. You make some valid points about ther game and except boll maybe we can see lots of players making poor choices when facing the chinese like they are desperate and try to force things and end up getting devastated. I mean the legendary swedish team got their ass kicked 4 times but kept coming at them improving their own game, instead of mimicking them. I know its not that simple, but ...one has to play on his/her own strengths instead of trying things that don't fit
 
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