Momo vs Kaidou

Well, my guess was wrong since Momo won the match. If Kaidou managed to get the return shot for Super Great Momoshiro Special aka Super Dunk into the court, things might have changed. Still, it was a close and exciting match between the two of them. Now, there's a 1-hr special next week which should go into great details on Ryoma's decision of whether to go for the US Open. Judging from the look of things, I guess he might go after all and that the series might not end despite speculations. This is because Tenipuri is essentially about Ryoma (Tennis no Oujisama) so the anime might shift the focus from Seigaku to just Ryoma in the US Open. That would be rather disastrous in my opinion since the whole appeal of the series is about the Seigaku team (at least to me) and their struggles to win each match against the strong rival schools like Hyoutei and Rikkaidai. Thus, if they just focus on Ryoma alone, I'm not sure how the ratings would fare. I for one would probably not enjoy it as much as seeing Ryoma alone. Just give me my Genichirou, Atobe, Tezuka etc anytime and I'll continue being a faithful viewer...

Next week's match would be between Eiji and Inui. It's an interesting combination. Although Inui might look tougher on paper since he knows each player's strengths and weaknesses well, Eiji has improved since the Kantou Senbatsu Camp days so he might just sneak in a tight victory over Inui. Besides, the ranking matches so far seems to be going against expectations e.g. Taka-san winning over Oishi for the first time and Kaidou looking stronger towards the end but he missed victory just by that one shot. If the story follows this trend, Eiji might win the match. What's more mouth-watering is the fact that the BIG BIG BIG match of this arc is coming up after that i.e. Tezuka vs Fuji. I can expect that this would be super exciting and I'm putting my money on Tezuka to win. Although I do believe that Fuji is strong, unless he goes all out in the match, he would not have a chance of winning. Besides, Tezuka would be trying to show his strength as it is the first serious match after he recovered. There is some talk of a 4th counter besides Higuma Otoshi, Tsubame Gaeshi, Hakugei. Who knows what Fuji might come up with? Tanoshimi desu ne!