It’s day 9, which means that 5 rounds of bouts have been completed, and we are left with 4 undefeated semifinalists. They will be matched up in rank order on day 11 to determine which two will face off for the yusho on day 13. As a reminder, these were are the quarterfinal pairings:
In what has to be considered an upset, Aratakayama slapped down former maegashira Bushozan after the latter drove him to the edge but couldn’t push him out. Daiyusho easily pushed out Tokunomusashi. Former maegashira Shimazuumi shoved out Ikirigata after a brief but spirited exchange. Kitanowaka and Kotokenryu engaged in a protracted standoff with a lot of hand fighting in an attempt to establish belt grips. Kitanowaka was the first to do so, and when Kotokenryu attempted a grip switch, Kitanowaka drove forward and crushed his opponent out.
So in the upper half of the bracket, it’ll be two former sekitori locking horns for the 9th time in what is likely to be a belt battle; Shimazuumi holds a 6-2 head-to-head edge, though Kitanowaka won their most recent bout by uwatenage. In the lower half, it’s two guys who between them have over 80 basho in ozumo without ever rising above Ms25.
Here’s how things stand in the Ms1-Ms5 promotion zone:
Kitanowaka is sure to return to the paid ranks for the first time since his January injury. Daiamami must win his final 2 bouts. Wakanosho is in the best shape of the other contenders. The only action tomorrow is Goshima fighting Ms9e Matsui, a fellow Ms60TD guy; Goshima probably needs to win out to keep his promotion hopes going. Come back on day 11 to see who makes the yusho final and where the promotion picture stands.
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Yes, Bushozan leas 5-3 against Kitanowaka, who is also 2-4 behind vs Shimazuumi, his opponent in the semifinals.
Darn, thank you, corrected.
Darn, 6-2! Made a bout query but hadn’t included shikona changes. Therefore the two bouts as Nakazono were missing. Glad U noticed.
I looked it up on “record by opponent” on the rikishi page.
“Two guys who between them have over 80 basho in ozumo without ever rising above Ms25”
To be fair, both as age 15 starters. Not major sekitori prospects for sure, but guys who are part of a large-ish group of rikishi that will surely produce some sekitori, it’s just hard-to-impossible to say who exactly.
(And sometimes it doesn’t take much to make one of them look like a breakout candidate – Futagoyama-beya’s Nobehara’s career achievements didn’t look much different until half a year ago, albeit starting from age 18. Sadly the shine has come off quickly there again with now three straight MK amid some apparent injury woes…)
On the high ranks again: I didn’t realize it until I read it, but that’s exactly Ms25 for both, too. Kitanowaka and Shimazuumi in the other half amusingly have almost the same high ranks as well (M14 and M12).
I think I agree that Goshima likely needs to go 6-1 to have a decent shot at promotion. At 5-2 most of the endangered juryo rikishi won’t need to do much to have a better case based on our ideas of how they calculate it – only Miyanokaze and Kyokukaiyu (and maybe Tsurugisho) need more than a 2-4 finish for that, and it looks like Ms5w 5-2 would only be fifth-best or so in the promotion queue.
Strong race this basho, though that may or may not have been helped by there being no juryo vs makushita matches so far. Instead, Ms top 5 guys have taken the opportunity to go 8-1 against Ms6+ opponents… (The only loser was Shimanoumi against Fukuzaki.) We’ll see if Goshima adds further to the dominance in a few hours.
It took Kotonayama more than 50 tournaments to cross that Ms25 barrier and his career high would be M7. (And even the later ozeki Takayasu needed nevertheless 28 basho to reach Ms22.)
Goshima did! I’m a bit surprised not all the promotion zone guys are in action tomorrow, but maybe my impression that they try to get them in on day 11 is mistaken.
I’ve never researched it, but I think there might be some interest in putting high makushita matches with relevance into the five-match blocks after the dohyo-iri, and sometimes there are just too many of them to get them all in on the first day, so some spill over to the second. That said, they did have Ms4w Shimanoumi’s match before the dohyo-iri yesterday, but that was at 0-4 so perhaps it just wasn’t relevant enough despite his rank.
The “missing” round 6 matches are what one would expect BTW, Wakanosho vs Goshima and Kamito vs Shohoryu.