2025 World Table Tennis Championships in Doha: Japan, both men and women's doubles, with two pairs of top four players, aiming to win gold

On April 30, the draw for each event of the 2025 Doha World Table Tennis Championships was held in Doha, Qatar. This year's World Table Tennis Championships will be held on May 17th ~ 25th, and the participants are all players who have won in the continental championships and qualifiers on all continents. According to the signing table, this tournament has a total of 5 events in men's singles, women's singles, men's doubles, women's doubles and mixed doubles, with 128 players in men's and women's singles, and 64 pairs of players in men's and women's doubles and mixed doubles.

Women's doubles Miwa Haramoto (right) / Miyu Kihara. Zhang Benmei and this World Table Tennis Championships signed up for three events: women's singles, women's doubles, and mixed doubles

Japanese media said on the 2nd that the three doubles events are all opportunities for the Japanese team to win medals, and the probability of winning a medal is higher than that of singles, and the team's goal is to break the barriers of Chinese power and aim for the highest podium.

In the men's doubles, Japan will be represented by No.2 seeds Daito Shinozuka/Hayasuke Togami and No.4 seeds Teruko Matsushima/Tomokazu Haramoto, both of whom will not meet the Chinese pair before the final, so there is a high chance of a medal, and if the Japanese pair face off in the semi-finals, the winning pair will reach the men's doubles final of the World Table Tennis Championships after Masataka Morizono/Yuya Oshima in 2017.

In Women's Doubles, No.1 seeds Satsuki Oto/Sakura Yokoi and No.4 seeds Miyu Kihara/Miwa Haramoto are both inside the No.4 seeds, and neither side will meet the Chinese pair until the semi-finals. Japanese media believe that Satsuki Oto/Sakura Yokoi, who are both online in attack power and momentum, and Miyu Kihara/Miwa Zhangmoto, who have both strong alliances and experience, all hide the strength to defeat the Chinese combination to win the championship.

On the other hand, the mixed doubles has become an official Olympic event since the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, and the world's table tennis giants have put the best players in the singles and doubles arena into the mixed doubles field. Japan's Teruku Matsushima/Miwa Zhang are the fifth seeds in the mixed doubles at the World Table Tennis Championships, and their potential opponents in the quarter-finals are Paris Olympic gold medallists and China's strongest pair Wang Chuqin/Sun Yingsha. Japanese media said that Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha are very popular players in China, and it is expected that many Chinese fans will flock to it at that time. Mixed Doubles 15th seeds Maharu Yoshimura/Satsuki Oto will also be in the third round against Paris 2024 silver medallists Lee Jung-sik/Kim E.N. Young.