What Does London Tell Us? Jun Mizutani’s Eyes <World Table Tennis London> “The biggest chance to defeat China was right in front of us”

The Japanese men’s and women’s teams advanced to the Final and clashed with China at the World Table Tennis London event (Team Event).

Jun Mizutani looks back on the battles played out at the centennial event.　

“The biggest chance to defeat China was right in front of us”

The strengths of Japan’s Tomokazu Harimoto and Sora Matsushima as “two aces” who can be studied and countered

　Watching this World Table Tennis London event on site, the very first thing I strongly felt from the opening point was the undeniable fact that overseas teams have made considerable progress in their “countermeasures against the Japanese men.” From the Group Stage onward, rival countries such as Germany, Chinese Taipei, and France had thoroughly studied Japan’s tactics and each player’s style of play.

　In particular, the way Germany’s Dang Qiu and the Lebrun brothers of France played was extremely skillful, and I could not help but feel a strong sense of危機感 at the fact that the world’s top players were coming with clear strategies to shut Japan down.

　At the same time, I also had concerns that the current Japanese team may be too fixated on the numbers of the “world rankings.” Japan’s top players place the highest priority on world rankings.

　At this World Table Tennis event as well, points were distributed according to the number of matches played. As a result, in the rush to secure immediate points, it seemed that the players’ desire to “keep playing matches no matter what” was taking precedence.