After ending the isolated life of The Lingshui Base in Hainan, the national table tennis team disbanded on the spot, and the team members returned to their respective cities to enjoy a rare vacation. Of course, there are also some players who choose to give up rest and practice in the offseason to improve their abilities, such as Sun Yingsha and coach Qiu Yike in Chengdu to strengthen training. In the May schedule announced by the World Table Tennis Federation, there are only 2 challenges with low level, but one thing worth noting is that Ito Yoshimachi changed his mind and re-participated in the mixed doubles competition. Liu Guoliang really had to be careful, and the national table tennis 2 people were given a heavy responsibility.
Ito partnered With Hayabusa Mizutani at the Tokyo Olympics, beating Xu Xin and Liu Shiwen to win the mixed doubles gold medal. Later, with the retirement of Hayabusa Mizutani, Ito also announced that he would no longer participate in mixed doubles matches, focusing on singles and women's doubles matches. However, Ito concentrated her attention and did not achieve the return she wanted. In the women's doubles match, the combination of Ito Andumi and Hayata Hina was unable to beat the seafood sisters of Wang Manyu and Sun Yingsha. In the singles match, Ito Mimachi was upset early in the Singapore Grand Slam, and did not even touch the face of the national table tennis.
For a variety of reasons, we saw Ito again in the mixed doubles list for the Westchester Challenge, which began in May, this time with Japanese doubles champion Yukiya Utada. Fans who pay attention to table tennis should not be unfamiliar with the name of Yukiya Utada, and his men's doubles partner with Hayasuke Toue is now ranked first in the world and can be said to be a major rival of national table tennis. Yukiya Utada's doubles ability is very good, which is probably a key reason why Ito chose to partner him in mixed doubles. At least we can understand that Ito is ready to continue to fight in mixed doubles.
For Liu Guoliang, it is indeed a very important thing to be careful and pay attention to when Ito changes his mind and re-participates in the mixed doubles competition. After all, at the Tokyo Olympics, we lost the gold medal in the mixed doubles competition, which is also the only one of the five gold medals lost by the national table tennis. Mixed doubles matches are relatively more contingencies, and in the big competition, each team can only have one pair of combinations to participate, which increases this contingency. As Xu Xin said, he didn't know why, so he lost the game in a vacuum. The probability of mixed doubles upset is greater, which may be the reason why Ito Isomasa is reluctant to give up mixed doubles.
Of course, Liu Guoliang and Guo Ping Tennis are also prepared for this, and Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha, two post-00 players, have been given heavy responsibilities. At the World Table Tennis Championships and the Singapore Grand Slam, Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha both won mixed doubles titles. And in the mixed doubles final of the World Table Tennis Championships, Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha defeated the Japanese combinations Zhang Benzhihe and Hayata Xina. Perhaps the Japanese team, seeing that the combination of Zhang Benzhi and Hayata Hina has not been able to make a breakthrough, invited Ito Mimako out, after all, when it comes to the threat to the national table tennis, it is Ito Mimako who is bigger after all.
Ito Mimachi once again chose to compete in mixed doubles, and the national table tennis has also used Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha to succeed Xu Xin and Liu Shiwen, and the showdown between the national table tennis and the Japanese table tennis in the mixed doubles arena will continue to be staged. I hope that at the Paris Olympics two years later, the national table tennis will not repeat the scene of Tokyo's loss to Ito.