The 2024 Table Tennis World Cup is approaching step by step, and when many famous players at home and abroad are seriously preparing for this important event, a marginalized world champion has made a controversial remark - recently, the Japanese star Yoshimura Maharu, who has won the mixed doubles gold medal at the World Table Tennis Championships and the silver medal in the Olympic men's team, appeared in the Sino-Japanese international table tennis exchange event, and then commented in an interview:
"To be honest, from a technical point of view, the gap between the Japanese team and the Chinese team is not that big. ”
As soon as this remark came out, it immediately sparked a heated discussion among Chinese and Japanese fans, some people thought that Yoshimura Maharu was arrogant and dissatisfied with the national table tennis, and some people thought that he was reasonable, because the recent World Table Tennis Championships situation is proof of this, and there are different opinions.
Born in 1993, Yoshimura Maharu was once the core of Japanese men's table tennis, and has represented the team in major tournaments many times, and his highlight moment was to win the mixed doubles championship with Kasumi Ishikawa at the 2017 World Table Tennis Championships, and before that, Yoshimura Maharu also won the Olympic men's team runner-up with Mizutani Hayabusa and Niwa Takaki in 2016.
Until last year, Yoshimura Maharu also defeated Ma Long in the national table tennis Grand Slam in international competitions, and won the men's singles championship in another tournament, but young Japanese players are emerging in an endless stream, and now he has faded out of the main ranks of the island country.
However, as a first-hand witness of the Sino-Japanese table tennis confrontation in recent years, Yoshimura Maharu is at least qualified to comment on both sides.
In recent years, Japan's table tennis career has improved significantly, and the threat to national table tennis is also increasing, among which Mizutani Hayabusa/Ito Misei defeated Xu Xin/Liu Shiwen at the 2021 Olympic Games to win the championship, and then Tomokazu Zhang won the 2022 Team World Table Tennis Championships against Wang Chuqin and Fan Zhendong, and Miwa Zhangmoto/Miyu Kihara also eliminated Sun Yingsha/Wang Manyu at the 2023 Asian Games.
At the 2024 World Table Tennis Championships in Busan, the Japanese women's team once led the Chinese team with a total score of 2-1, of which Hina Hayada defeated Chen Meng 3-1 and Miyu Hirano defeated Wang Yidi 3-0.
Therefore, many fans have agreed with Yoshimura Maharu's point of view, believing that the technical gap between the Chinese and Japanese teams is no longer large.
In Yoshimura's view, the big gap between Japanese table tennis and China is reflected in some other aspects, especially at the level of accumulation, he believes that "in China, all world champions will become coaches in the same way, especially in terms of spirit, and will be passed on from generation to generation", this kind of accumulation of experience and other aspects is currently lacking in Japanese table tennis.
It is worth mentioning that the Japanese star Matsuzaki Kimiyo, who has won the world championship many times, also participated in this event, and her comment on the Busan World Table Tennis Championships is also "The Japanese team is one step closer to victory, and the gap between the Japanese team and the Chinese team has indeed narrowed."
Maybe the wolf has really come, so will the national table tennis be ready for the upcoming World Cup and the Olympic Games? The suspense still exists, let's wait and see!