Most concerning of all, 17-year-old Japanese Miu Hirano came from nowhere to humble Chinese stars Ding Ning, Zhu Yuling and Chen Meng on her way to winning the women's singles, the first non-Chinese winner of the event since 1996.
And if China's perch on the throne appears to be slipping, there is no doubt which country is poised to knock it off.
"China is always impressive, but I have been very much impressed by Japan," said Katya Brand, a veteran umpire serving as tournament evaluator in Wuxi. "Japan did a very good job this time."
Miu was the standout success for Japan last week, but her team also made progress across the board, reaching the final of the mixed doubles and women's team events and providing two of the four semifinalists in the women's doubles.
These results are even more exciting when you consider how young this team is. In Wuxi, 20-year-old Miyu Maeda was the oldest player in the women's team, and three of the seven squad members, including newly-crowned champion Miu, were born in 2000.
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Miu Hirano of Japan smile at the award ceremony of after beating China's Chen Meng to grab the women's singles title at the ITTF Asian Championships in Wuxi on April 15.[Photo/chinadaily.com.cn] |
The men's team still contains relative veterans like 26-year-old Kenta Matsudaira, but also Tomokazu Harimoto, who was born in 2003.
For Japan, bringing through this new batch of talented teenagers has been a deliberate choice aimed at building a team capable of beating China at their home Olympics in Tokyo in 2020.
"[Japan] works a lot with young players, taking them at a very young age and working a lot with them. Japan did great work throughout the last years to do this," said Brand.
The huge strides made by Miu in just the last few months shows that this work is now paying off, and also suggests there could be much more to come. Before the start of the Asian Championships, the 17-year-old had never beaten a Chinese rival before, but in Wuxi she outclassed everyone.
"Hirano was dominating the entire match over Chen Meng, and her techniques are indeed more advanced than ours," confessed China's women's team coach Kong Linghui.
