Ishikawa has a table tennis family, her mother is still an influential coach for her, her younger sister Risa is also a professional table tennis player. In 2012, she and her teammates created history when they became the first Japanese table tennis players to win a medal at the Olympic Games. When she was younger she used to be nicknamed "Ai-Chan II", a comparison to fellow athlete Ai Fukuhara who also started playing table tennis at a young age and was very successful rather early. Like Fukuhara, Ishikawa speaks Mandarin.