The Japanese table tennis T-League is in full swing, and on 21st September, a key matchup broke out between Japan’s Harimoto Tomokazu and the 40-year-old former Chinese table tennis team mainstay and world champion Hao Shuai, and the result was that Harimoto Tomokazu, who had already played several times before and had won more than he had lost, had a tough 3-2 turnaround this time, and ultimately led Ryukyu Club to beat the Okayama team 3-1.
Harimoto Tomokazu was born in 2003 and Hao Shuai was born in 1983, a difference of nearly 20 years. They are athletes who grew up in completely different eras, and their technical styles are even more different, with the former specialising in high-quality looping attacks and aggressiveness on the court, and the latter being a typical lightweight player with a good sense of touch and control, who is mainly known for his quick connecting game.
At the beginning of this century, Hao Shuai just debuted when the momentum is very full, once with Wang Hao and others, but ultimately the best performance of his career stopped at the World Cup Men’s Championship, and now it is far away from his home country to participate in the Japanese T-League, previously won Harimoto Tomokazu, but most of the time are at a disadvantage, and even a single set by Harimoto Tomokazu bombed 11-0 razor, so this time he is still a matchup between the bad and the bad.
The match started with Harimoto Tomokazu first on the doubles court, and together with his teammate Shunsuke Okano, they suffered a 1-2 loss to Okayama’s Riki Wakagawa/Washi Yoshiyama, but then Daito Shinozuka defeated Kouichi Yoshiyama 3-1 to give the Ryukyu club an equaliser, and the two sides were tied on aggregate, and then it was time to move on to the marquee match of Harimoto Tomokazu vs Hao Shuai. Tomokazu Zhang vs Hao Shuai.
Harimoto Tomokazu did not play well in the first set and lost 9-11 at the end, while the experienced Hao Shuai managed to win the first set. However, the Japanese player quickly returned the favour in the second set, also narrowly beating Hao 11-9, which brought them back to the same starting line and put the veteran player, who was clearly lacking in fitness and energy, in a passive position.
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Harimoto Tomokazu crashed out again in the third set, losing 8-11, and then returned the favour in the fourth set, 11-8, before the deciding set started at 6-6, but Harimoto Tomokazu took it again 11-8, thus defeating Hao Shuai by a score of 3-2, giving the Ryukyus a crucial point and maintaining their advantage over the veteran.
After Hao’s defeat, the Okayama club was unable to recover, and the Ryukyus took advantage of the situation, sending World Champion Masaharu Yoshimura to beat Japanese National Champion Riki Wakagawa 3-1 in the fourth set to close out the match – Hao has been the real No.1 starter for Okayama in recent years, and it would have been difficult for him to win the match if he hadn’t been able to pick up a point, and the result was not a surprise. No surprise there.
