16 Facts About Tomokazu Harimoto

Tomokazu Harimoto is a Japanese table tennis player who is currently world rank number 4 in ITTF.

Tomokazu Harimoto's younger sister Miwa Harimoto is a table tennis player competing in the U-18 junior table tennis circuit.

Tomokazu Harimoto began playing table tennis at the age of two.

Tomokazu Harimoto became a naturalized citizen of Japan in 2014 and legally changed his surname to Harimoto.

Tomokazu Harimoto first won the All-Japan Table Tennis Championships Juniors title in 2010 as a first grader.

Tomokazu Harimoto would continue to win the tournament for all 6 years of his elementary school years.

However, due to the November 2015 Paris attacks, Tomokazu Harimoto was not able to participate in the tournament.

Aged 12 years and 355 days, Tomokazu Harimoto defeated seasoned professionals Ho Kwan Kit, Hugo Calderano, and teammate Kohei Sambe to win the 2016 U-21 Japan Open title.

Later that year, Tomokazu Harimoto won gold medals in the boys' singles and teams events at the World Junior Table Tennis Championships in Cape Town, South Africa.

Tomokazu Harimoto achieved an Under-21 ranking of No 10 in the world in December 2016.

Tomokazu Harimoto reached the finals with victories over Alvaro Robles, Sakai Asuka, Robert Gardos, and local favorite Sharath Kamal, before losing to defending champion Dimitrij Ovtcharov in straight sets.

In June of 2018, Tomokazu Harimoto shocked the world by winning first place in the ITTF World Tour Japan Open, after beating Olympic champions Ma Long in the semifinal and Zhang Jike in the final.

Tomokazu Harimoto was just short of 15 years old when he won the title.

Tomokazu Harimoto was upset in the semi-finals by Dimitrij Ovtcharov in the WTT Contender event, but won the champion for the WTT Star Contender event.

Mizutani positively noted that Tomokazu Harimoto was reverting to his more aggressive style of play in 2021.

Tomokazu Harimoto was upset by Darko Jorgic in the round of 16 of the men's singles event at the Tokyo Olympics.