Some notes on the Japan Women's Race to Tokyo 2020 Singles
Ito, Hirano and Ishikawa have all played 8 events this year, which puts a cap on the WR points they can acquire by Jan. 2020. Now, each of them need at least a SF finish in a World Tour Regular Event (Bulgaria, Czech and Swedish Opens left this year) or a QF finish in a World Tour Platinum Event (German and Austrian Opens left this year) to get any type of gain in their WR. Why?
We expect Ito's, Ishikawa's and Hirano's lowest results of 675, 720 and 855 to be wiped out when all 3 play the World Tour Grand Finals later this year where each will get at least 1020 points to replace these results. The trio's second lowest results are all 900, so each of them needs to reach at least the SF in Bulgaria and Czech or their WR points will not increase since the next-lowest result of 900 would not be replaced. To illustrate: Even if Ito and Hirano lose in the first rounds of both the Bulgaria and Czech Open, and Ishikawa loses in the QF in both events, Hirano and Ito would still lead the race in the end.
With the initial draw out, it appears that Ishikawa and Hirano will likely need to face and beat at least one Chinese opponent to reach the SF. Ito's initial draw is good since she got drawn into a quarter without any Chinese players, but we still have to wait to see where the winners of the qualification groups will be drawn since up to 6 Chinese players can make the main draw.
With the lineups for the Asian Championships and Paraguay Open out, I just want to reiterate something I mentioned earlier this year: "Because the race to the Olympic singles event is based on world ranking, it creates a conflict of interest between players. Naturally, you would also want your teammates to succeed and go deep in the tournaments, but that scenario would make it harder for you to overtake their ranking if you've already been knocked out of the same tournament." Furthermore, it incentivizes you to put your WR over team performance since it's WR that will get you an Olympic spot.
In any other year, Ito and Hayata would be playing in the Asian Championships. However, as soon as the Paraguay Open entry list was revealed, it became obvious that Ito and Hayata chose to enter the Paraguay Open rather than the Asian Championships for a better chance at boosting their WR and playing in the Olympics. I don't blame them for their decision since they had to make that decision based on the Olympic Qualification System that JTTA has in place. However, it's apparent that the system in place, which makes one's Olympic Qualification based solely on WR, has weakened the Japanese National Team as a whole. Now, Japan can't send its absolute best lineup to the Asian Championships since some members of the team are more concerned with gaining ranking points to give them a better chance at the Olympics. We also saw this last year as well when many top Japanese players skipped the Asian Games to play in the Bulgaria and Czech Opens, which offered more WR points.
In the end, we do not even know if Ito and Hayata's decision to join the Paraguay Open will pay off. Ito has no room for error and must win the event to get any kind of gain in the Race to Tokyo. The deadline for entries was supposed to be Aug. 11, but it seems that the deadline was moved to Aug. 14 (Maybe because of the low turnout). Anyway, the CNT still has 3 days to send some players to stop any kind of WR gain. Worst-case scenario is that Ito and Hayata do not gain any meaningful WR points and they also cannot help Japan in the Asian Championships. All of this stems from JTTA's WR-based Olympic Qualification System.
