Satsuki Odo’s Power Swing [Swing twice as much and hit it thick!]

Vol. 1 (Part 1)
“Let’s double the size of the swing and learn to catch the inside of the ball more solidly.” Ryusuke Sakamoto, who became Satsuki Odo’s coach in October 2023, took on the task of improving Odo’s swing. Now that Odo can unleash powerful two-wing drives from close to the table, Mid-distance, and far from the table alike, we introduce her “Power Swing” with Coach Sakamoto’s commentary.
Commentary = Ryusuke Sakamoto　　supervised by Ryusuke Sakamoto　PHOTO Manabu Nakagawa

Coach Ryusuke Sakamoto, who helped a gifted player blossom, speaks about “Satsuki Odo’s swing improvement” — hit loose balls with a big swing

“First I told her to make the swing twice as big, then we started with one-placement practice”

Back when I was head coach of T.T Saitama, Oshima-san (Masamori) would bring Odo and a few other players to practice, so I had known Odo for quite some time. She played with very few errors, so on the positive side I felt she would be hard to beat by players below her level. On the other hand, I also felt she maybe didn’t yet have the explosiveness needed to beat players above her.

　I actually started coaching Odo in late October 2023.

　My thinking was that if you can’t first build a relationship of trust, then even if you talk about technique, players won’t really listen. So at the beginning, instead of talking about improving her swing, I spoke with her about how I think about table tennis, and so on.

　While gradually building that relationship of trust, the moment I felt I was really earning Odo’s trust came in late November, about a month after I became her coach, at the Zennoh CUP Osaka Tournament (the Paris Olympic qualifier). At that event, I was in the coaching box for Yokoi (Sakura), whom I had already been coaching, but looking ahead, I told Oshima-san that I wanted to sit in Odo’s corner for the placement match after she moved into the ranking-deciding bracket.

　In the playoff for 5th and 6th place, Odo faced Miu Hirano (Kinoshita Group) and won after a full Game match. It was her first win over Hirano, and even Odo herself was surprised. At that point, though, I still hadn’t given much technical instruction on things like the swing, so from the bench I only gave mental and tactical advice, telling her, “When it comes to important moments, you tend to choose the option that keeps you from making a mistake yourself, so in this Match, let’s stop making that choice.” That win also helped deepen our trust, and I felt we were ready to move on to specific improvements to her swing and related areas.