Liu Shiwen
In January 2018, she won the women's singles at the All Japan Championship for the first time by defeating Miu Hirano in the final. She also won women's doubles with Hina Hayata and the mixed doubles with Masataka Morizono and achieved a triple crown. The triple crown is the third in the history of the All Japan Table Tennis Championships after Kazuko Yamaizumi (1960) and Kasumi Ishikawa (2014), and she was the youngest to achieve this feat at the age of 17 years old. In February, at the Team World Cup , where a new method of playing doubles in the first game was introduced, she played mainly in doubles with Hina Hayata and won a silver medal. In May, in the 2018 World Team Table Tennis Championships, she defeated Jeon Ji Hee (Korea Republic) 3-0 in the semifinals and Liu Shiwen (China), who has won 37 consecutive victories against Japanese players, in the first match in the final. She won 3-2 against her. The Japanese team eventually lost to China 1-3 and won a silver medal, but Ito herself finished the tournament with eight wins and zero losses. In June, at the Japan Open, she beat Chen Xingtong (China) in the women's singles semi-final after coming back from 0-3 deficit. She then went on to beat Wang Manyu (China) in the final. In November 2018, she beat all the top Chinese players ranked higher than her: world no. 6 and Olympic Singles gold medalist Ding Ning, world no. 2 Liu Shiwen and world no. 1 Zhu Yuling at the 2018 Swedish Open (table tennis), winning the tournament.