Hina Hayata “long serve” breaks China’s “Hayata siege”!

The key to victory was the long serve.

Even so, China’s wall was still thick.

In the quarterfinals of the WTT Champions Chongqing 2025 (March 11-16), where 32 players including the world’s top-ranked table tennis players gathered, world No. 5 Hina Hayata (24) lost to world No. 3 Wang Geidie and narrowly missed advancing to the last four.

Hayata’s left arm, which was injured at the Paris Olympics, has been improving recently, and she was in pretty good form, winning her final T-League match of the season. Still, he was outplayed by Wang, who attacked him mainly through the middle.
Apparently, before the match, Wang had been training for the Hayata match together with his colleague and world No. 1 ranked Sun Ying-Sha. For the Chinese, who dominate the world rankings, Hayata is their biggest natural enemy. Therefore, a “Hayata siege net” has been formed.

Hayata has the World Championships coming up in May, but will she have a chance for revenge against the Chinese? The key is her long serve. In her first-round match against Huang Yifa, Hayata focused on her serve in front of the fore serve, but she disrupted her opponent with a long serve toward the end of the match. In her second-round match against Bruna Takahashi of Brazil, Hayata also won the match with a half-long serve that caused her opponent to make a receiving error.

Hayata’s serve quality tends to drop when she is in a slump. If she can overcome this and make effective use of her long serve, she will be able to reach the top of the world.

In May, Hayata will break the Chinese barrier.

From the April 4/11, 2025 issue of “FRIDAY