The ITTF's Schedule for May 2022 has been released, and to the surprise of many fans, Mimako Ito, the top rival of the Chinese team and Tokyo Olympic mixed doubles champion, has made an important decision to return to the mixed doubles arena and compete with his new partner Yukiya Utada in the WTT Fremont Challenge and the WTT Westchester Challenge in the United States.
After the retirement of his old partner Hayabusa Mizutani last year, Ito Hades made it clear that he would give up participating in the mixed doubles competition, but now he is "reversing" and suddenly making a comeback in this project, is it not to impact the 2024 Olympic mixed doubles championship? What caused her to make this shift?
As we all know, Ito Mishimasa / Mizutani Hayabusa was the mixed doubles champion of the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games and the first mixed doubles gold medalist in the history of table tennis, when the two worked together sincerely to defeat The Chinese team's Liu Shiwen / Xu Xin in the case of a 0-2 behind in the final, worthy of being the top combination in table tennis.
However, after the Olympic Games, Mizutani Hayabusa quickly announced his retirement, which also made Ito Mishimasa once discouraged by the mixed doubles, bluntly saying that he had no interest in playing in the project again, and even did not participate in the Japanese National Championships, until this month, when there were finally new changes.
According to the official websites of the International Table Tennis Federation and the World Table Tennis Federation, Ito did not register for other projects of the two-stop American Challenge this time, but had a special love for mixed doubles, and its intention was very obvious, that is, to test the bull knife, exercise the degree of cooperation between himself and Yukiya Utada, and accumulate experience for the future.
So the question is, why did Ito's mentality towards the mixed doubles project suddenly change 180 degrees? Personally, I think the reason comes from two aspects: one is that the new changes in the pattern of Japanese men's table tennis have provided her with more choices, and the other is that the ups and downs of her own achievements have also given her a new plan.
Let's start with the first point. According to olympic rules, athletes participating in mixed doubles must be one of the three main players participating in the team, but after The retirement of Hayabusa Mizutani, Zhang Benzhi and Hayata Havehi have been determined to be paired, and Niwa Takashi's doubles performance is not outstanding, so Ito Mimachi will feel that it is difficult to find a partner.
However, through the results of recent international competitions, we can see that Yukiya Utada's doubles ability is very good, and he is still a left-handed player who can complement Ito Mimako, and singles also has the possibility of impacting the top three main players, which is indeed a good potential cooperation object.
Let's talk about the second point. After winning the Olympic mixed doubles championship, Ito probably felt that he had no motivation to climb the peak in doubles, so he hoped to put more energy into singles events, but the subsequent Houston World Table Tennis Championships, WTT Grand Slams she failed to achieve good results, and the Events within the Japanese team also lost consecutively, which will inevitably cause a change in mentality.
I wanted to break through from singles, but the result was getting worse and worse. Today's Ito Mimachi is not to say that it is challenging the Chinese team, even in Japan, it is difficult to stabilize the status of singles "first sister", so it is not surprising that you want to return to your old business and continue to exercise doubles at this time: everything still has to leave a way out!
With the return of Ito, the preparation of the national table tennis for the 2024 Paris Olympics has also added new variables. Previously, everyone defaulted that the number one opponent in the mixed doubles would be Tomoru Zhang and /Hina Hayata, but now it seems that the cooperation between Ito Mimachi and Yukiya Utada may contain greater potential, which is really indispensable!
At present, the mixed doubles ace of the Chinese team is naturally Wang Chuqin/Sun Yingsha, but since the Japanese team has changed, then Liu Guoliang and the coaching staff will definitely try to cultivate more candidate combinations: the Sino-Japanese table tennis competition has entered a new stage, so who can laugh last this time? Let's wait and see: come on, national table tennis!