Yesterday the ITTF Croatia Challenge began, because it is a low-level event China did not send players to participate, the current women's singles has played the round of sixteen, sent the second-tier main players to participate in the Japanese team, occupying seven seats in the round of sixteen. Since Japan's participation is basically a "sea of people tactics" free to grab points, so occupying seven seats is a very normal situation, but today we want to pay attention to the fact that the two players who have been selected as the main team of the Japan World Table Tennis Championships, Hamamoto Yusuke (who has joined Austria) and Hitomi Sato, were actually defeated by the same 13-year-old child, to know that Hamamoto and Sato are very strong, the former defeated Sun Yingsha, and the latter caused considerable trouble to Wang Manyu at the Budapest World Table Tennis Championships.
So who is this 13-year-old? That's right, she's the Japanese rising star Haruka Koshimi.
Born in Fukuoka, Japan in 2006, Haruka Koishi is currently training at an elite academy (i.e. Zhang Benzhi and that school), after defeating China's Guo Ruichen at the 2018 Belarus Challenge and China's Yuan Yuan 3-0 at the Thailand Challenge.
And this time she defeated two Japanese main players in succession, it is really incredible, especially she is only 13 years old, it is said that she began to contact table tennis at the age of 9, facing Hitomi Sato and Hamamoto Yusuke, two sisters, let go of her hands and feet, and won the cold. Especially against Hitomi Sato, who is also a chipper, in the unfavorable situation of falling behind 1:3, it was not easy to win three consecutive sets.
At present, the level of Japanese table tennis can be said to be improving by leaps and bounds, and now Ito Mimako, Hirano Miyu, Hayata Hina are only their first team members, followed by Nagasaki Miyu, Kihara Miyu, Haruka Koshi, Mikazu Zhang Ben and other young girl players, which inevitably makes us a little worried.
Hiromi (third from left) and Ai Fukuhara
At present, Japan is close to the strength of our national table tennis teenagers in the youth area, and there are probably three reasons:
1) Japanese youth table tennis was not very good before 2010, and did not have much advantage over Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, relying only on Ai Fukuhara and Yoshinori Ishikawa. Therefore, the Japan Table Tennis Association simply focused on supporting the younger generation and allowing them to enter the international arena before the age of 14.
2) Japan is hosting the Olympic Games in 2020, which is a big opportunity, and has won a lot of funds to support advantageous projects and projects that have the potential to win gold, and table tennis is one of them. This also stimulated the Japanese table tennis market.
Nagasaki grapefruit
3) Japan has invited many coaches and athletes from China to provide high-level guidance on the one hand, and a large number of high-level sparring partners on the other hand, which will undoubtedly improve their level.
In recent years, the system of sports schools in China has been relaxed, and even the Beijing Shichahai Sports School, which has trained Zhang Yining, Li Jiawei, Liu Jia and Wu Xue, has cancelled table tennis training, and the follow-up Sino-Japanese table tennis duel inevitably makes us vaguely worried.