Video: 12-year old Tomokazo Harimoto shocks table tennis community by defeating world number 72

Harimoto has also defeated the world number 43

At the formative age of 12, most people are taking baby steps in to the world of puberty. However, every now and then a prodigy tends to defy the odds, by attaining skills in a particular aspect of life, during this time. One such example is Japanese paddler Tomokazu Harimoto. Today, he shocked the world by becoming the youngest ever player to qualify for the main draw of a International Table Tennis Tour (ITTF) tour event.

Ranked 286th in the world, Harimoto’s participation in the qualifiers itself was being touted as massive success. But, he went one step further by remaining undefeated throught out his campaign. He defeated world number 72 Tan Ruwiu from Croatia and Czech Republic’s Tomas Polansky to book a spot in the main draw. That being said, Harimoto has been handed a tough draw, as he will square off against China number one and Olympic Champion, Ma Long.

He said in a press release, "I won my group here, I'm happy because I won against Tan Ruiwu. If I attacked against him, everything was good but I had problem when I had to defend.” Having gone undefeated through his group Harimoto revealed that he started playing table tennis, when he was just two years old. Now, he has a nine hour training schedule, which has catapulted him to world stardom.

Few months ago, Harimoto created headlines after defeating top ranked players such as Omar Assar and Jens Lundqvist. He defeated Ruiwu in the deciding game, by a margin of 8-11, 16-14, 11-9, 11-9, 3-11, 13-15 and 11-9.

You can watch his match highlights here: