Tomokazu Harimoto: a future star or a reality?

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We all know that this japanese wonderkid called Tomokazu Harimoto defeated Jens Lundqvist in the semifinals of the Safir Open, and reached the final against Xu Hui, who won it.

Today, he has played an outstanding match, and has beaten Tan Ruiwu, one of the best "European" players of the last few years, in my opinion at least. It seems that Tomokazu's high level is more a reality than a hope.

What do you think? Will this kid be Japan's hope to beat Chinese players? Is he going to be able to beat the Chinese player in the next years?

 
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Is ok to "Cho". But triple and quadro "Cho" is NOT ok.
And with the swinging hand everywhere, is even annoying to see.
Such celebration is not graceful. If he can be more steady and calm after winning every point, he would totally get more fans.
 
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Talking About Cadet,

I pray that there would be good pedigree for every kind of play style.

Waldner's and Allrounder only have Ouaiche as follower.

Japan traditional Block Hit near the table got several (Harimoto Tomokazu, Ito Mima, etc).

Classical Chopper almost extinct.
 
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Is ok to "Cho". But triple and quadro "Cho" is NOT ok.
And with the swinging hand everywhere, is even annoying to see.
Such celebration is not graceful. If he can be more steady and calm after winning every point, he would totally get more fans.

I think it's a kid's thing.
Eventually they grow apart from it.
Look at lin gaoyuan, this year in the chinese league matches he barely makes any sound.

personally I was never a choer but in my first years I would like pump myself up with words and stuff.
now not anymore, I'm much more relaxed.
Maybe when you are new to competing you just put too much energy into it and it needs to come out in some way, that's the reason for the chos.

and never forget that coaches actually encourage the chos.
it's not like tomokazu does all that show naturally, he was taught to behave that way by grown ups.
I remember an interview with feng tianwei where she was saying she didn't like to cho and her coach would punish her because of that.
stuff like "you don't cho a point, 10 push ups".
and this wasn't some little kid school, it was at national level, don't remember if in china or in singapore.
 
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There was a selection tournament for World Team Championships held last weekend which was won by Kenta Matsudaira joining Mizutani, Niwa and Yoshimura.
20 players were split in 2 groups and Harimoto went 5-4 beating Kishikawa and Morizono so he's already amongst top players in Japan. 5th member of the Japanese team will be determined by the selection comittee after the nationals so we might get to see Harimoto at Worlds next year.
 
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This kid scream like no one does. I personally feel like he is too immature to play in international games.
As shown in Harimoto's game, I think he has a big potential in the future, maybe he will be able to beat 1 top chinese players.
But, it is also true that there are no other players around his age who matches his skill.
Considering that aspect, I think Japan need to find few more talents to be able to beat China.

Definitely he is talented table tennis player, however, he should learn manners of table tennis.
 
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There was a selection tournament for World Team Championships held last weekend which was won by Kenta Matsudaira joining Mizutani, Niwa and Yoshimura.
20 players were split in 2 groups and Harimoto went 5-4 beating Kishikawa and Morizono so he's already amongst top players in Japan. 5th member of the Japanese team will be determined by the selection comittee after the nationals so we might get to see Harimoto at Worlds next year.

Any videos from the selection tournament?
 
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Did you all noticed that new japanese players celebrate more and more, Oshima Yuya too. I feel that he is celebrating more. Look at his game. He is actually very good, but whenever he takes crucial point, he is doing too much 'cho'. And he is loosing concentration. And when he looses a point, he gets too much frustrated. Maybe new jap players are too emtional, or trained like that? I don't know, but I don't support that,as a professional, that should not happen. Maybe they are not mature enough? They should learn from mizutani definitely

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Harimoto has just become the youngest ever winner in the under 21's Event at the ITTF World tours winning the Japan Open today!

 
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We do need to remember that he's just a kid, so of course he's going to be a bit overzealous because he's been told his whole life that he's the shit. Probably later, the young players will pipe down a bit. The Japanese have bad national self esteem in general, so they seem to be making up for it lately.


Then again, Waldner was very humble in his youth.
 
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