In March 1999, Kavaguti teamed up with Alexander Markuntsov to compete for Japan. They trained mainly in Hackensack with Moskvina and Igor Moskvin as their coaches and Tatiana Druchinina, Igor Bobrin, and Moskvina as their choreographers. They were the first Japanese pair team to medal at an ISU championships when they took silver at the World Junior Championships in 2001. Kavaguti and Markuntsov split in 2003. Kavaguti said, "We had a good working relationship but it was very difficult for Alexander to acquire Japanese citizenship, thus we couldn't represent Japan in the Olympics so after a while we decided to break up."