[Talking Through Net and Edge] Fumiya Igarashi: “When a ball clips the net or the Edge, it’s proof they’re taking a shot at winning the point.”

Published in the December 2026 issue of O-KOKU / The fate of table tennis players: “Talking Through Net In and Edge Balls!”

　Let top players and coaches talk at length about the ball that everyone experiences in a match—the “Net in,” when the ball touches the net and still lands on the table, and the “Edge ball,” when it hits the corner of the Table and goes in. Sometimes lucky, sometimes unlucky, these balls are part of the game.

vol.4 Fumiya Igarashi 〈Hinode Medical Welfare Group〉

Fumiya Igarashi
Born September 9, 1999, from Yamagata Prefecture. After attending Ishikawa/Yugakukan High School, he went on to Waseda University and is currently active as a member of Hinode Medical Welfare Group. Third place at the 2020 All Japan Student Invitational, Round of 16 at the 2024 All Japan Social Championships

Because I went for it boldly, I was able to seize the momentum from the Edge. That one ball led to the comeback

　Net in, Edge ball... An unexpected ball can change the flow of a match. Fumiya Igarashi takes that as the result of aggressive play and switches his focus to the next ball.

I try not to worry too much about Net ins and Edge balls, because they’re just part of the match.

From my experience so far, I feel like balls that go in when I swing boldly tend to end up as Net ins or Edge balls more often than balls I play safely just trying to get them on the table. So when the opponent gets a Net in or an Edge, I think, “They’re going for it.”

That said, if I put a lot of spin on the Service and the opponent’s Stop shot or Push, trying to get the ball on the table, clips the net and goes in, I can’t help thinking, “Whoa.” It’s an unlucky point because a ball that could easily have gone into the net ended up going in by chance. So in those crucial moments, I also think about the possibility of the opponent getting a Net in, and I consciously avoid putting too much spin on my Service. I do pay attention to whether I’m cutting the Service or not.

There have also been times when a ball I went for aggressively went in off the Edge and helped me seize the momentum from there. That was in a T League match in December 2024.

Against LIN Yun-Ju (Chinese Taipei / Kinoshita Meister Tokyo), I was down 1–2 in Games in the fourth Game, but I came back from 5–10 to 10-all. I then received his half-long Service to my forehand side with a solid amount of Spin, using a low loop drive. My opponent had read that Placement and was waiting to step around, but the loop drive went in off the Edge and he couldn’t touch the Ball.

If I had been too afraid of making a mistake and played a high, arcing loop drive there, I might have been countered and that would have been the end. But I had already come back from 5–10, and at 10-all it was a situation where winning the next Ball would win the Game (the T League rules have no deuce except in the deciding Game), so I had decided to put on as much Spin as I could and go for a tough loop drive. That’s why it became such a low, demanding Ball.

I can’t aim to produce an Edge, of course, but because it came as the result of aggressive play, I was able to keep playing even more boldly afterward, and that led to the comeback win.

There are good examples like that, but in matches, the opponent’s Net ins and Edge balls can keep happening too. If you let that get to you, it affects your next play, so I just tell myself, “It can’t be helped,” and move on. On top of that, if the opponent is swinging boldly and that’s why they’re getting lots of Net ins and Edge balls, I use that as material for the next play, such as changing the Placement.

Rather than dwelling on what has happened, I think about “What do I do with the next Ball?” Including Net ins and Edge balls, I think that’s what matters most.