Photo: Giampiero SpositoKotaro Aizawa and Naoaki Yamamoto
Beach tennis continues to increase in popularity in Japan with a further six tournaments due to take place over the next three months.
Publicity for the sport will also be boosted by a G1 event in Tokyo which will be played on site at the ATP 500 tournament over the course of the final weekend.
The addition of these six tournaments to the 2012 calendar sees the total for the year reach 15 surpassing the 2011 total by three.
Growth in Japan has increased each year since 2009, when the first beach tennis tournament came to the nation, and with interest now also coming from China, who will be staging their first-ever tournament in September, the popularity of the sport appears to be set for take-off in Asia.
In 2008 the year-end rankings of the first ITF Beach Tennis Tour featured just three Japanese men but 52 weeks later this number had jumped to 71. At the end of 2009 there were 51 Japanese women in the rankings.
These numbers have risen steadily and in the latest rankings, released on 30 July, there were 120 Japanese men and 104 Japanese women.
The leading Japanese players currently occupy positions within the Top 50. Heading the rankings for the men are Kotaro Aizawa and Naoaki Yamamoto who jointly hold 32nd position and, at No. 22, Tomomi Takahashi is currently Japan's highest ranked woman.
Upcoming Japanese Tournaments in 2012
18 August
Fujisawa Kanagawa
25 August
Fukuoka
23 September
Hiratsuka
05 October
Tokyo
13 October
Fujisawa Kanagawa
27 October
Miyazaki
Year-end Ranking of Top Japanese Players
|
Year
|
Men
|
Women
|
|
2008
|
114= Takahari Sugita
114= Takehito Hamada
114= Takahashi Toshiya
|
N/A
|
|
2009
|
29= Kenichi Ohno
29= Kiyotaka Shimomura
|
21 Kasumi Aiko
|
|
2010
|
45= Kotaro Aizawa
|
28= Yukiko Nakamura
28= Tomomi Takahashi
|
|
2011
|
26 Naoaki Yamamoto
|
18= Tomomi Takahashi
|
|
2012*
|
32= Kotaro Aizawa
32= Naoaki Yamamoto
|
22= Tomomi Takahashi
|
* as at 30 July 2012