BENGALURU (India) - Chinese Taipei are a familiar foe for Ramu Tokashiki, having played against them 4 times already in her past 2 Asia Cup appearances. Getting to face them - or any other team, actually - again at the Women’s Asia Cup is something Tokashiki still enjoys after a one-year hiatus.

“It’s a great opportunity to play other teams in Asia and in front of the fans in the other countries,” Tokashiki reflects. “It’s not like in Japan, it’s so different.”

Chinese Taipei weren’t so easy to put away this time for Tokashiki and Japan, blasting out for a 21-6 advantage in the second quarter to take a 6-point leading going into the halftime break. This wasn’t your typical Chinese Taipei squad and the defending champions needed to gather themselves and come out strong for the final two quarters.

“It’s like [they had more] motivation,” Tokashiki said. “So we switched at half time to play with more energy. We were totally different team from the first half and that is the team that we are.”

Japan held their opponents to only 16 points in the second half while scoring 51 points on their end to come away with a 78-49 win. They moved the ball well and locked down on defense to build up the lead and cruise to the win.

Tokashiki scored 19 points - the most she has ever had against Chinese Taipei in the Asia Cup - on 8-13 shooting from the field to go with 11 boards, 3 assists, 2 steals, and 3 blocks. The 1.93M (6’4”) forward continues to get more comfortable and confident leading up to other potential key matchups in the coming days. One she is quite looking forward to is against Australia who lost in the finals back in 2017 to Japan who were without Tokashiki that year.

“They have two players that played with me together in the [WNBA] together,” said the former Seattle Storm. “To play [against] them, we have to win in this group. Before this game, I watched them play and they were so good, so I’m really looking forward to play against them.”

Japan are the back-to-back-to-back defending Women’s Asia Cup champions, two of those titles with Tokashiki as the tournament MVP. However, the competition this year will be as stiff as usual and as expected, so Japan and their star forward will have to continue playing to their peak potential.

How confident is Tokashiki on their chances of completing the four-peat?

“if we can play basketball like the second half today, if we could play the whole game like that, we can win!”

Without thinking ahead too far, Tokashiki is highly anticipating to play another important game to close out the Group Phase. Japan will go up against Korea at 17:45 (GMT +5.5) for a direct spot to the Semi-finals.

“I’m so excited for the game tomorrow. Can’t wait for that [game]!”

FIBA