Japan Women's Race to Tokyo 2020 Singles

Update to Standings after Australian Open


Recap of the Australian Open:
1. Women's singles- This tournament was insane and it had huge effects on the Race to Tokyo. Ishikawa's first win against a core CNT player couldn't have come at a better time. That win put her back in the race, and she's now neck and neck with Hirano. While Ito didn't get the win over Ding Ning to push her lead further, things could have been much worse for her. At least she got 2 much needed wins against Hirano and Li Jiayi to match Ishikawa's surprise SF finish. Ito accomplished 2 things in her crucial R16 win against Hirano. First, she stopped Hirano from getting more 2020 ranking points, while gaining points for herself. Second, she delays Hirano from overtaking Cheng-I Ching in current WR, thus making Hirano's draw a bit tougher for at least for 1 to 2 more months.
2. Mixed doubles- With the Ito/Mizutani pair's loss to HK, Japan has yet to win a XD title on the World Tour. It'll be interesting to see if Japan chooses to experiment some more with different lineups. Honestly, I do not think Japan should keep changing the mixed doubles pairings. Maybe it would be more helpful for Japan to give the pairings more tournaments to synergise and get used to playing with each other rather than changing the doubles pairings yet again. The Wong/Doo pairing had early exits during last year's first few World Tour events before finally winning the WT Grand Finals after getting accustomed with each other. Lin/Cheng also took some tournaments to gel.

By now, JTTA should have an idea on which pairs have more potential than others. We can probably rule out Harimoto/Ishikawa (2 early exits) and Niwa/Ito (lost to Lin/Cheng twice). That leaves 3 possible contenders:

• Harimoto/Hayata (only Japanese pair to beat a Chinese pair since the XD event was introduced last year)
• Ito/Mizutani (Beat Lin/Cheng twice, which Niwa/Ito couldn't accomplish, and were competitive in all matches they've played so far.)
• Yoshimura/Ishikawa (3x WTTC Medalist, though strangely, their results in the XD event in the World Tour dating back to last year have been disappointing as compared to what they usually accomplish in the WTTC.)

It's also important for JTTA to avoid too much changing of pairings since Japan will also want to get a good seeding for the Olympic games. To get a medal, Japan would want to avoid China at least till the SF and preferably till the Final. Japan will need to commit to specific pairings and play these pairings for multiple tournaments to get enough ranking points to be seeded highly.

One thing to note is that the WTGF will only allow 1 XD pairing per country. The Japanese pairing that qualifies for the WTGF this year, will be able to get more ranking points then other Japanese pairings. While technically, if the Japanese pair in the WTGF finishes top 4, it qualifies for the olympics, Japan does not need to abide by this and can send any pairing it wants since it is the host nation and the olympic committee has the final say on who makes the olympics. Still, if Japan cares about seeding, it would most likely send the pairing that makes the WTGF as this will likely be the highest seeded pairing for the olympics and will better Japan's draw for a medal.

Want to hear an interesting yet strange statistic? The new uniforms for the Japan Women’s Team debuted during this year’s World Championships. There are 3 colors: red, blue and yellow-green. What’s really strange is that all of Ito’s singles losses to CNT members came when Ito wore the yellow-green uniform.

Ito’s Wins and Losses this year against CNT players since the debut of the new uniforms in the WTTC:

Blue: 3 Wins (Wang Yidi, Ding Ning, Li Jiayi) 0 Losses
Red: 1 Win (Sun Mingyang) 0 Losses
Yellow-Green: 0 Wins, 6 Losses: (Sun Yingsha, Wang Manyu twice, Wang Yidi, Gu Yuting, Ding Ning)

I’m not claiming Ito’s losses are due to her uniform choice, but it’s certainly one of those strange and unlikely coincidences like Ishikawa meeting Kihara in the R32 and losing to Sun Yingsha 3 Opens in a row.