Mima Ito vs Ding Ning- 2020 German Open Quarterfinal

Let’s look at current Olympic Champion Ding Ning and Olympic hopeful Mima Ito!

Japan’s Brightest Star

While Tomokazu Harimoto represents Japanese Hope’s against the Chinese Men, Mima Ito undoubtedly leads the charge against the Chinese Women. With short pips on the backhand, the top Chinese players were stunned by her creative service receives, handcuffing serves, and devastating flat hits . Who could forget the 2018 Swedish Open, where Ito had beaten Liu Shiwen, Ding Ning, and Zhu Yuling to arrest the title. The biggest question on everyone’s mind at the time: could Ito keep this up until Tokyo 2020?

Mima Ito repeated her success against Ding Ning at the 2019 China Open, where Ito won 4-1. The duo then met again at the semifinal stage in Australia a little over one month later. Could Ito bring her stunning, yet risky game and beat Ding Ning once more?

At first, it looked possible as Ito recovered from a 0-1 deficit.

Ding Ning never let it happen.

Ding Ning took the match, winning the last three required by relatively comfortable margins. What happened? Did Ding Ning wake up, or did Mima Ito fall asleep? Well, here’s my take on it.

Ito didn’t start off well, Ding Ning started poorly

Ito’s strategy never really changed throughout the match. She relentlessly attacked Ding Ning’s backhand and wide forehand with the aim of winning the points as quickly as possible. I seriously questioned this strategy throughout the entire match. As Ito tried to kill ball after ball, she seemed to make mistake after mistake. Luckily for her, Ding Ning also made mistakes in trying to keep up with speed and placement. I much preferred the points where Ito decided to use her short game to get the right ball to attack. The short pip pushes gave Ding a fit, making it difficult for Ding to keep the ball short, giving a weak ball for Ito to attack.

Ding Ning Adjusted

With this in mind, it is unfair to say that Ito played poorly throughout the last 3 games, because she didn’t change anything as she thought she had the highest likelihood of winning with the strategy she employed. Ding Ning, however, hit all of the weaknesses of Ito in games 3 to 5. From the beginning of game 3, we can see that Ding Ning slows herself down, as to gain more time to deal with the sheer speed of Ito and to throw off Ito’s timing, forcing her to play passively instead of aggressively. Instead of pushing short, Ding Ning unabashedly pushes long to draw open the rally, and boy can Ding Ning rally. In addition, Ding Ning also tried to play wider angles against Ito, as to take advantage of her small wingspan.

Ito, on the other hand, was forced out of her game. She found herself running around the table, ultimately getting pinned to the backhand to no avail, taking the ball late instead of early, and having to start the rally instead of finishing the point. One thing I thought Ito did unnecessarily was to try to open with her forehand from the backhand corner. This shot was extremely slow, powerless, and inaccurate, and when it did land, Ito always found herself running to cover her forehand side of the table, something that was very hard for her to do. Rather, I believe that Ito should have kept on opening with her backhand instead.

One may ask why it took so long for Ding Ning to implement the strategies she ended up with in games 4 and 5. Why did she take so long to figure out Ito? One explanation is that playing Ito requires a completely different approach than playing any other player. Where do you ever see coaches telling the players to serve or push long? Since when was a ping pong match won by being slower than your opponent? Playing Ito is outrageously difficult because of how much one must adjust their game to play her. Ito failed to capitalize on this as she couldn’t be consistent enough to beat Ding Ning before she adjusted. I fear that Ding Ning will remember how she won this match, now she won’t take as long to adjust.

What must Ito do to prepare for Tokyo 2020?

In order to combat the level of familiarity Ding Ning must have attained, I feel that she needs to definitely needs to attain a few more alternative playing methods. I miss seeing her change of pace, as she used to use the short pips to slow her opponents down to get a weak ball. Her slow, skinny loops, her service receive variation, completely absent.

Once the Chinese have enough information to plan against you, it’s almost certainly game over. It seems that Ito bought into the idea that she has to kill everything right away, that she has to play at one monotonously fast pace, that she can’t serve anything else besides shovel serves. To me, her strength laid in her variation. She has the ability to change between any one tactic at any given time, yet she doesn’t use it. If Ito is to pose a threat to China come 2020,  this variation is vital. Can she do it? Only time will tell .