I do hope Miu Hirano gets that 2nd Olympic singles spot. And you're right that she did well at those selection points. However, she made it harder on herself by losing to Pyon Song Gyong at the Asian Games. She could really use those 10 extra points to separate herself from Mima ito further in the Paris 2024 race.
It would have been really nice if she had beaten Miwa today to help secure a spot in the WTT Finals. Now, she has to hope YXX loses to Han Ying. Also, making WTT Finals would not be a problem at all if she hadn't had strange losses earlier in the year to Pavade, Lily Zhang, and Bruna Takahashi. But the situation is what it is. I hope she makes it to WTT Finals.
Hirano's win rate against teammates has always been poor (but her
overall H2H is actually decent). Coincidentally, her win rate against non-CNT overseas players (100% at the start of 2023) only started dipping after the points for beating top 3 CNT players came into effect this year. It is easy to tell from the breakdown below that she has had her eyes on the core CNT players this year. The root cause for getting Hirano stuck in the "ELO hell" still comes down to
Ishikawa retiring at the wrong time.
When Hirano was on the verge of dropping out last year, I still rated her as the
best in performance, all because of that 3-4 loss against CM at WTTC 2021. Interestingly, Kato also
had her eye on Hirano ahead of WTTC 2023. Like
I once wrote, Hirano is like ZJK, Ito is like ML and Hayata is like XX in terms of trajecotry.
As for Harimoto,
once again, she will have to get past Kihara and Nagasaki first, on top of Hayata. She is up against the strongest generation here [comments by
Hirano,
Hayata,
Nagasaki].
WTT SCT Goa 2023, 2/27-3/5
SF Hirano 2-0 -> 2-3 CIC (first loss to non-CNT overseas players in this cycle. CIC also beat Hayata earlier in R32 and then Ito in R16 at WTT CS Macao 2023)
Singapore Smash 2023, 3/7-19
R32 Hirano 2-0 -> 3-2 WYD (WR3 for that week only)
R16 Hirano 1-0 -> 2-3 Zhang Rui
WTT SCT Bangkok, 4/23-29
R16 Hirano 0-3 Lily Zhang
WTTC 2023, 5/20-28
R128 4-0 Zeng Jian
R64 4-2 Kaufmann
R32 4-0 JJH
R16 0-4 WYD (WR3 for that week only again. Hirano said it was a lost cause after losing G2 12:14 and G3 9:11)
WTT CT Tunis, 6/20-25 (right after Nojima Cup 2023)
R16 1-3 Takahashi
WTT CT Zagreb 2023, 6/26-7/2
QF Hirano 3-1 LWS
SF Hirano 3-1 KM
F Hirano 4-3 SYS (WR1, 3-year-and-9-month win streak against overseas players broken)
WTT CT Lima 2023, 7/31-8/6
R16 0-3 Pavade (forfeited in G2 due to leg cramp)
ATTC 2023, 9/3-10
WT
SF Hirano 1-3 CM (WR2)
WS
R64 Hirano 3-0 Li Ying Im
R32 Hirano 3-1 Yang Ha Eun
R16 Hirano 0-3 CXT (WR4)
Asian Games 2022, 9/23-10/8
WT
SF Hirano 2-3 JJH
F Hirano 2-1 -> 2-3 CM (WR2)
WS
R32 4-0 SUWAL Sikka
R16 2-4 Pyon Song Gyong (Hirano won 4-1 at Buenos Aires 2018 but she said there was little intel after the pandemic)
