Honoka handled business comfortably here, winning her fisrt match 3-0 against 20 yr old Suhana Saini from India.
There was a bit of delay at the start of the game because of table issues. Both player noticed table is not properly aligned and had to seek help from officials.
Tournament date is June 26 to July 5 (Honoka’s birthday!)
Tournament is in 17 days. More headliner names in this tournament. Honoka will play doubles with Adriana Diaz!
Unfortunately, still no Honoka-Hitomi pairing again.
Pretty excited for this one. The top 3 seeds have all beaten Honoka in their last match, so curious how that plays out this tournament. Hoping to see her overcome these adversaries.
Felt bad for Nina. She didn’t know how to deal with Honoka.
Japan coach on Honoka:
“Nakazawa said he still thinks Hashimoto has not even shown “100%” of her level yet, despite winning comfortably.
“If Hashimoto plays to her true ability, she won’t lose.”
This was Hashimoto’s first time being assigned the “ace” position in the team lineup.
She expected to face 62-year-old veteran Ni Xia Lian, but Luxembourg changed the matchup at the last second.
Instead, she faced a completely unfamiliar opponent with no scouting footage available.
The article says the opponent used awkward European-style “spinny/weird-ball” shots that initially troubled Hashimoto, but she adapted quickly and still won in straight games.
“Spartan” in Japanese media usually means:
- extremely strict
- disciplined
- hard-training
- no-nonsense coaching
For example, Mima Ito is known for her explosive backhand and early timing, but I don’t think people talk enough about how elite her touch/short game and serve are. She creates so many easy third-ball opportunities from them.
Today on “I’m so bored waiting for the games that I ended up playing pointless ones”:
Please, switch to a countdown format instead of listing local times. Not everyone knows how far ahead or behind a city is, and constantly searching “London time now” gets tiring fast.
Just show something like “Match starts in 2h 15m.” Simple, universal, no guesswork.
Sincerely,
the fans
What if there was a show where pro athletes are forced to compete in OTHER sports—but ones that kinda match their skills?
Not totally random. Just enough overlap to make translating their skills interesting.
Like:
Racket players → pickleball
Billiards/pool players → curling
Basketball/football scorers → golf
Archery / shooting sports → darts
Gymnasts → pole vault
But here’s the twist:
They don’t know what sport they’re playing.
Each round they pick from vague clues like “precision” or “ice”… or go in completely blind.
They get like 2 days to train, then compete for real.
Halfway through, teams break apart and it becomes every athlete for themselves.
Feels like something MrBeast/Dude Perfect would try.
I feel like this would either flop immediately or become insanely addictive. Either way, fans get introduced to different sports, which is a win.