Yu Nabae (難波江 優, Nabae Yū) is the current All-Japan Junior champion who defeated Takuma Egawa in the finals to win the championship.
Appearance[]
Yu has an average physique with no striking features. He has a friendly nature and shows some reactions outside the court, but on the court, he maintains a complete expressionless face. It is also due to his total control over his emotions while playing.
Personality[]
Yu has a very calm and composed demeanor outside the court. He has a friendly nature. While playing in a match, he tends to exploit his opponent's weakness and even hit the balls in uncomfortable zones.
According to Takayuki Okada, Yu has a perfect control over his mental state. But on losing a point suddenly, he gets irritated and stalls for some time with a rally to get back his rationality. This is to make sure that his emotions don't affect his shape shifting play.
Plot[]
Skills[]
Yu is All Japan champion for high school level. He is a player with an average build, but exploits his opponent's weaknesses efficiently to defeat stronger players. He has the ability to shift playing styles based on the opponent and can use many different types of play styles.
Data Gathering[]
Also, like Maruo, Nabae can accurately judge another player's strengths and weakness while focusing on discovering his style so he can counter it in the best way available. This shows that Nabae has a great game sense, vision and observing skills.
His style of data gathering seems to be different of that of Maruo, since he is seen ranking the skills of others players according to his own judgement. Unlike Maruo, Nabae can actually update his data while playing and without using notes or his computer.
All-A[]
While Maruo fully analyses his opponent every movement to create a winner vision, Nabae also analyzes the gameplay, but seems to focus more on the player itself - going as far as to even rank their abilities - and he also focus on his own play to get the upper hand. While it may seem to be the same thing, it actually isn't, since while Maruo needs to fully analyzes of his opponents with his accurate data to explore their weakness, Nabae only needs the minimum to grasp their styles while knowing how strong the player is technically speaking, and then Nabae change his own style to win against them.
However, to be able to do something like this, a fair amount of skills are required. This is the core of All-A: be able to play skillfully in every field of the game, so he can excel against any opponent without having to fully depend on previous or progressing data while shifting his style to adjust. Being a top-class player in every aspect, that is Nabae's goal
Tennis Matches[]
| Spoilers Warning | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Opponent | Results | Outcome | Competition/Match Type | Round |
| Takuma Egawa | 4-6 7-5 6-3 | Win | All-Japan Junior Tennis Tournament Year 1 | Finals |
| Eiichiro Maruo | 6-2 6-1 | Win | All-Japan Junior Indoor Selectionals, Kantou Preliminaries Year 2 | 1 |
| Yoshiaki Ide | 6-2 6-1 | Win | All-Japan Junior Indoor Selectionals, Kantou Preliminaries Year 2 | Semi-Finals |
| Takayuki Okada | 6-4 6-4 | Win | All-Japan Junior Indoor Selectionals, Kantou Preliminaries Year 2 | Finals |
| Oota | 6-1 6-0 | Win | Kanto Tournament Year 2 | 4 |
| Eiichiro Maruo | 6-4 2-6 5-7 | Win | Kanto Tournament Year 2 | Semi-Finals |
| Hiroshi Araya | 6-4 5-7 5-7 | Lose | Kanto Tournament Year 2 | Finals |
| Hiroshi Araya | 6-7(3-7) 6-4 7-5 | Win | All-Japan Junior Tennis Tournament Year 2 | Semi Finals |
Relationships[]
Eiichirō Maruo[]
Yu and Eiichiro have a special tennis based friendship. They met each other at All Japan Tournament when they were collecting data. They got interested in each other's way of collecting information and shared their datas and information. According to Yu, Maruo is someone who can understand him.
Etymology[]
- The name Yu means "excellence, superiority, gentleness" (優).
- Yu's surname Nabae means "difficult, impossible, trouble, accident, defect, hardships" (難) (na), "wave, breaker" (波) (ha/ba) and "bay, inlet" (江) (e).