At the 76th All Japan Student Table Tennis Championships held at the beginning of October last year at the Yokohama Cultural Gymnasium, Morita and his partner, Tatsuo Seyama (third year, Faculty of Economics), came to the final match of men's doubles. In the quarterfinals they defeated the favored pair of Jun Mizutani and Yoshikazu Kai of Meiji University, gaining momentum in the process.

Their opponents in the final were yet another Meiji pair. In the first three sets of the match, they won the first set before going down in the second and third sets. After being overtaken in the fourth set they faced match point. But after a succession of deuces, the Morita / Seyama pair came back from behind and took the set. Morita says of winning that set, “It was the result of four years of hard work. That moment was the turning point in my life.” After battling out the fifth set, they won again and secured a magnificent tournament victory. This was the first victory for Chuo University in 24 years.

Continuing on with this form, in January of this year Morita finished in third place in the men's doubles of the All Japan Table Tennis Championships. This was the first time a Chuo student had reached the podium in the championships in 40 years.
Morita started playing table tennis at junior high school. His homeroom teacher was the table tennis coach and suggested he join the club. “In the table tennis world, starting in junior high school is generally too late.” But with enthusiastic support from his parents, he practiced every day and rapidly improved. When he left junior high school he had been crowned singles champion in Ishikawa Prefecture, won the Northern Shin-etsu title and reached the quarterfinals in the national tournament. But the day before the national tournament his mother, who had supported him from the outset, passed away. Looking back at that time he reflects, “That harrowing experience changed my ambition and my determination for table tennis grew even stronger.”

He decided to attend Higashiyama High School in Kyoto, a well-known table tennis school. “A local high school would have been ok, but I wanted to put myself among strong players and become a player who could win at the national level.”

In his second year, Morita reached the finals of the inter-high tournament in boys' doubles, and in his third year he won the Triple Crown in the Kinki tournament by winning the singles, doubles and team events. He was beaten by a Chinese player in the inter-high tournament and couldn't finish his high school days with a satisfactory result.

“I felt that I had left something behind at high school,” says Morita when talking about his reasons for entering Chuo University. He soon registered a worthwhile result in his first year by winning the Kanto student's rookie singles tournament. Later on that year he finished third in the men's doubles in the All Japan Student's Championships, fourth in singles at the All Japan Invitational Table Tennis Championships in his second year, and second in singles at the same tournament in his third year.

In the autumn of his third year, Morita became captain of the table tennis team and began to think, “I've only had to think about myself so far. Now I have to find a way to get my teammates winning and make others think of Chuo as a team to be reckoned with.” But this turned into pressure, which affected his game. “It became my own weakness.”

After graduating, Morita will continue to play for the Citizen Watch corporate team. His next goal is to become “No. 1 corporate player in Japan.”

(Hori)