Beijing time on January 27, 2022 news, with the slow opening of the curtain of the new season, the world table tennis giants have re-embarked on a new journey of preparation. In the previous WTT Macau Championship Event, the national table tennis players with the advantage of the number of participants laughed at the end, and Ma Long, Fan Zhendong, Liu Shiwen, Wang Manyu and other active main players practiced in the competition and gained a lot. When the national table tennis showed an active training posture, the fierce rival Japanese table tennis was also not far behind, and launched a "battle over the air" by holding the annual All Japan Table Tennis Championships, but the sudden voice of one person stole the limelight of the event. That's right, she's Ito.
Dare Ito say! Making an important decision to "hit" Japanese table tennis, Liu Shiwen Sun Yingsha is also difficult to do! As the absolute main force of the new generation of the current Japanese table tennis women's team, Ito has shown a good growth momentum in the past two cycles, her upper limit has not yet appeared, and in the Paris cycle, it is still the number one opponent that the national table tennis women's team needs to guard against. At the All Japan Table Tennis Championships, she and her friend Hina Hayata once again joined forces to make their women's doubles debut for the new season, eliminating the rival Kobayashi/Mitsuru Nomura 3-1. The duo of Ito and Hayata have won two world table tennis championships runners-up and are not bad. But for Ito, her greatest pride is not the women's doubles.
The most unforgettable joy of Ito's victory was the mixed doubles champion at home in Tokyo, who defeated the Xu Xin/Liu Shiwen combination and made the world table tennis scene look sideways. The Japanese table tennis coaching staff also successfully completed the "wish closed loop" (from proposing a mixed doubles selection for the Olympic Games to the national team standing on the championship stage), creating a new history. But just as they looked confidently at the Paris cycle, Mizutani Hayabusa's announcement of retirement disrupted their calculations. The male player retired, and then find a re-pairing, in many domestic competitions in Japan, Ito's partner is Masataka Morien, the pair of Ethan combinations, once made the outside world shine. But in Ito's heart, Mizutani Hayabusa is the partner she is most willing to team up. For this she made an important decision: I have reached the highest goal in mixed doubles, but it is because of him (Mizutani Hayabusa). Without him, I wouldn't be able to beat the Chinese players, so I won't play mixed doubles again!
Ito's words came out, which surprised the outside world, and the Japanese media could not help but sigh: (before she changed her decision) can only expect Ito to defeat the national table tennis in the other two (singles and doubles). As we all know, the Japanese Table Tennis Association has gone to great lengths to "get" the mixed doubles to the Olympic project, and at the same time, the painstaking Ito/Mizutani Hayabusa combination has just reached the first Olympic championship goal, but now Ito's "self-cutting back road" can be described as a heavy blow to the japanese table tennis championship ambition: she will not fight for others, it is really no rut! Ito's "sealing" on the mixed doubles has also made the national table tennis side lose the opportunity for revenge, and it is difficult for veteran Liu Shiwen and young general Sun Yingsha to do this. But it doesn't matter, since Ito wants to continue to challenge us in singles and doubles, let the horse come!