On April 10, 2022, Beijing time, the Japanese Table Tennis Asian Games Selection Tournament entered the second match day, for the women's singles No. 2 seed Ishikawa Yoshijun, the next competition is a battle of honor, because she lost to Hitomi Sato and Hirano Miyu in a row, withdrew from the competition early, and completely failed to qualify for the Asian Games women's singles. The Japanese team is also in the process of replacing the old and the new, and Ishikawa Yoshijun may not be able to win a place in the team stage of the Asian Games.
In the previous Japan Round of 32, Zhang Benzhihe and Hayata Hina won the championship respectively, and the two of them qualified for the Asian Games singles in advance. One seat is left in the men's singles and one seat in the women's singles, which is selected through the selection competition. Eight people in the women's singles participated in the selection competition, the top seed was Ito Mimachi, the second seed was Ishikawa Yoshijun, and the men's singles seven people participated in the selection competition, including Tokami Hayabusa, Yoshimura Makoto, and veteran Takashi Niwa withdrew.
The selection round is divided into two groups, and the first place in the group advances to the final, competing for a place to advance. In the women's singles, Ito Mimachi was in Group A, she played two 4-0s, defeated Miyu Kato and Naoka Hashimoto, Miyu Kihara also played well, she beat Hashimoto 4-2, and then beat Miyu Kato 4-3. In this way, Ito and Miyu Kihara competed for the first place in Group A.
The four players in Group B were Miyu Hirano, Yoshinori Ishikawa, Hitomi Sato, yurika Minamiwa, and Yoshinori Ishikawa was in poor shape, first losing 2-4 to Hitomi Sato, and then losing 0-4 to Miyu Hirano, and Yoshinori Ishikawa, who was ranked seventh in the world, suffered a heavy blow and was out of the game. Of course, Hirano Miyu is a world champion and is in good shape, and such a result is not surprising. In addition to beating Yoshinori Ishikawa, Miyu Hirano also beat Yurika Minamiha 4-1, and she will compete with Hitomi Sato, who also won two consecutive victories, for the first place in the group.
Simply put, another women's singles spot for the Japanese team will be between Mimachi Ito, Miyu Kihara, Miyu Hirano and Hitomi Sato. For Ishikawa Yoshijun, she not only failed to qualify for the women's singles, but also had variables in whether she could join the team lineup, after all, the Japanese team is also changing between the old and the new, and young players such as Miyu Kihara and Miyu Nagasaki are more optimistic.
In the men's singles arena, Toue Hayabusa in Group A won both matches, and the hope of promotion is very large. Because Zhang Benzhihe has qualified for singles, veteran Niwa Takashi retired from the competition, and the lack of highlights in the men's singles also shows that the overall strength of the Japanese men's singles has declined, and the reserve strength is obviously insufficient. For the national table tennis, in addition to Zhang Benzhihe, the biggest threat is Tokami Hayabusa and Yukiya Utada!