भट्टी के नाम (ईद का चांद)

इस तीरगी-ए-शब को रौशन करने वाले व्याध थे तुम,

भटकी कश्ती को साहिल दिखाने वाले क़ुत्ब थे तुम,

हमें ग़म है, और बेहद ख़ुशी भी, कि-

चंद ही दिनों में ईद का चांद बन जओगे तुम   

Mima Ito

It was the 10^th of June 2018 and in front of a packed Kita-Kyushu gymnasium the score-line read 11-08, 11-09, 11-06, 09-04. Chen Xingtong, one of China’s rising stars, was just two points away from securing a place in her first ever Japan Open final. Things had gone awfully wrong for Mima Ito, the local girl. Apart from the closely fought second game, Ito had been outplayed throughout the match, largely thanks to her lack of consistency. Her trademark backhand punches with her “short pimples”, usually lethal, had just refused to land on the table. But just when it looked as if Japan would not be represented in the final, the audience got to witness the most remarkable comeback of the year. Ito won the next seven points in a row and then with machine-like efficiency went on to win the next three games. It was as if she had one job to do: forget about the previous point and play the next one to the best of her abilities. No matter whether a point ended in a disappointing error or in a spectacular winner after a long, hard-fought rally she betrayed zero emotions, quite a contrast to another Japanese teenager who has been making waves recently. 

Mima Ito (Photo by Hideyuki Imai, www.ittf.com)

A month ago, TableTennis fans had witnessed a similar Mima Ito at the World Team Championships at Halmstad. In the final match against China, she faced Liu Shiwen in the opening encounter and was staring at defeat when the score read 5-1 in the final set in Liu Shiwen’s favour. What followed was extra-ordinary. The next point would have been astonishing even in the training hall; but the context just made it super special. Ito served short on Liu Shiwen’s forehand, who pushed the ball long on Ito’s backhand. A rapid-fire exchange that followed was cut short abruptly when Liu Shiwen’s topspin hit the net and landed on Ito’s side of the table, who somehow managed to keep the ball in play. But, quite understandably, her retrieve popped high and Liu Shiwen had the entire table at her mercy. She smashed the ball with considerable force, but unfortunately directed it right into Ito’s hitting zone. An ordinary player would have been pleased with mere contact with the ball. But Ito smashed the ball crosscourt for a winner and nonchalantly walked into position for the next point. The rest is history.

Mima Ito has been around at the top for some time now. Her constant presence in the top ten, consistent performances on the Tour and especially the grace and maturity she displays while playing has made us all forget that she is still just 17. It’s another glaring example of the systematic bias against female sportspersons that her stupendous achievements (and those of her teammate Miu Hirano) have not received the kind of attention that has been generated by Tomokazu Harimoto’s meteoric rise. 

Ito’s ascent to the lofty heights she currently occupies was no less sensational. She won her first major international title in 2014 when the German Open (one of the most prestigious tournaments of the year) was held at Magdeburg. In the Doubles event she paired up with Miu Hirano and defied odds by winning the title. Both Hirano and Ito were thirteen at the time. Ito returned to the German Open next year and managed to win the Singles event this time, beating Singapore legend Feng Tianwei in straight games in the semis and overcoming the crowd favourite Patrissa Solja of Germany.¹ Her reaction after her win against Feng Tianwei was priceless- there wasn’t one. Her matter-of-fact way of going about her business and her calm, composed demeanor belied the fact that she was just 15! The moment that catapulted her to world-wide fame, however, came in 2016, when she upset Ding Ning in the Asian qualification tournament for the Olympics in Hong Kong. Ding Ning, who had won the 2015 World Championships, despite battling an injury in the final, was (and probably still is) by some distance the best player in the world. It was then that the Table Tennis world first took notice of Ito and her compatriot Miu Hirano (who had beaten Liu Shiwen in the same tournament). Today, Ito has, without a doubt, established herself as Japan’s best player, having beaten Kasumi Ishikawa in the final of the Japanese National Championships.    

Mima Ito has an aggressive playing style that is as different from from the Chinese style as it is possible to be. Most Chinese women, play rapid, spinny rallies close to the table. They use subtle changes of direction to manoeuver their opponents out of position and then exploit empty areas on the table, while keeping their own bases covered with their electrifying footwork. Ito’s game doesn’t fit this pattern at all. Firstly, she has short pimples on her backhand. Although they impart little spin of their own, short pimples aid in “lifting” opponent’s backspins. Furthermore, flat hits with short pimples have some degree of backspin and are therefore difficult to counterattack.² Her extraordinary reflexes notwithstanding, her short stature restricts her ability to cover quick, wide balls. Therefore, she relies on her super-effective backhand punches and devastating forehand smashes to keep her opponents at bay. The other weapons that Ito and Hirano, both have found useful are their serves, especially what are widely described today as “shovel” serves. Their serves are incredibly deceptive and even the best Chinese players have struggled to get a reliable read on them. It was her serves that helped Miu Hirano overcome Zhu Yuling, Chen Meng and Ding Ning at the 2017 Asian Championship, just a month before the World Championships, sending alarm bells ringing in the Chinese camp. When Ito beat Wang Manyu in the final of the 2018 Japan Open, her serves continued to serve her well, helping her gain a head start in points when she was serving. The fact that Wang Manyu, who had quite comfortably beaten Ito a week before in Shenzen, was having trouble with her serves, goes on to show the importance of the art of constantly evolving one’s game, something which Ito is an absolute master of. 

Japan has completely revolutionised international Table Tennis by introducing a fabulous crop of young players, who have established themselves as serious contenders in big events. Hirano and Ito are being closely followed by Hina Hayata, who has an added advantage of being left-handed. The left-hand right-hand combination of Hayata and Ito won Bronze at the 2017 Worlds, matching Hirano’s Bronze in the Singles event. Hayata has been no less impressive in singles. She was a hair’s breadth away from beating China’s Zhu Yuling at the Grand Finals in 2018. Miu Nagasaki and Miu Kihara aren’t too far behind either.

With the next Olympics hosted by Japan, we are all eagerly waiting to see the Chinese response to this extra-ordinary resurgence by Japan.    

¹ In the Under-21 event at the same tournament Ito was beaten in the final by another Japanese teenager, Hina Hayata.

² Despite being rare on the international scene, short pimples are remarkably popular in India. Many of India’s leading women (Mouma Das, Madhurika Patkar) have developed their games with short pimples.

Tomokazu Harimoto

What if you beat Timo  Boll (German legend, World Cup Winner and simply the best non-Chinese player of the 21^st century), Jun Mizutani (8 time Japanese National Champion, Olympic Bronze Medalist), Vladimir Samsonov (former WR1 and an evergreen tree), Fan Zhendong (the best male player on the planet currently), Zhang Jike (Olympic and two time World Champion) within a span of a year? What if you won the Japanese National Championship, reached the quarterfinals of a World Table Tennis Championship, won your first World Tour title, managed a top-four finish in a World Tour Grand Finals? What if you bagged the most sought-after scalp in today’s men’s Table Tennis - that of Ma Long (the most popular contender for GOAT) – in front of your home crowd?

Then you would have had a remarkable Table Tennis career indeed.

But imagine that you did all this before celebrating your fifteenth birthday! That would simply be - Ican’tfindasuitableadjectivevtodescribehowIfeelaboutthis.

Tomokazu Harimoto (Photo: Hideyuki Imai, www.ittf.com)

Over the course of the last year or so a fourteen year old Japanese teenager by the name Tomokazu Harimoto has got hold of the Table Tennis fraternity by the scruff of their necks and shaken them a couple of dozen times, poured ice cold water over them and “CHO-CHO”-ed till their ears went numb!

The first time I heard Harimoto’s name was when he beat Sharath Kamal in the semifinal of the 2017 India Open (one of the rare occasions when India hosted a World Tour Open). When he lost to Dimitrij Ovtcharov of Germany (who had a fantastic 2017 too) in the final, he missed out an opportunity to beat the previous record of the youngest male winner of a World Tour (or Pro Tour as it was called earlier) event by several years.  Although he was quite comprehensively beaten by Ovtcharov, the thirteen year old whose “cho”s drowned out a heavily partisan crowd at the Thyagaraj Stadium during the semifinal made a lasting impression.

Really young sportspersons competing shoulder to shoulder with their adult counterparts and managing to succeed is not unheard of. Nadia Komaneci is probably the most famous name that comes to mind. Although average ages of female gymnasts do tend to be on the lower side, in a sport like Table Tennis where players continue to perform at incredible levels right in their early forties (Vladimir Samsonov is currently 42, three times as old as Harimoto), it is extremely unusual to have a 14 year-old challenging the top players. Therefore I naturally assumed that Harimoto’s levels would soon drop and he would be remembered as just another “wonderkid” who caused an upset or two. But as the year unfolded and as Harimoto sent shockwave after shockwave through the Table Tennis world, his detractors, who had dismissed him earlier, had to eat their own words.

Although he had been well-known as a “Japanese Wonderkid” for some time, he really announced himself to the world at the 2017 World Championship in Dusseldorf. In the round of 64 Harimoto was drawn against his fellow countryman, Jun Mizutani. Mizutani has been among the best non-Chinese male players for some years now and the 8-time Japanese National Champion and the reigning Bronze-medalist from Rio 2016 was widely expected to pose the strongest challenge to the Chinese vice-grip on the World Championship. But Harimoto beat him and did it with astonishing ease. Throughout the match, Mizutani was the one chasing the ball. Harimoto, playing close to the table, from where his backhand was absolutely devastating, consistently managed to control the rallies, by pushing Mizutani wide with the help of his backhand and then exploiting the empty areas. Mizutani, who prefers to play powerful counterloops away from the table, failed to adapt to this super-aggressive, close-to-the-table play and eventually surrendered the match 11-07, 11-06, 14-12, 07-11, 11-08. Harimoto would eventually go on to lose 4-1 in the quarterfinal to China’s Xu Xin, but not before becoming the sport’s youngest ever quarterfinalist at a world championship.

If Harimoto missed out on a chance to become the youngest ever winner of a World Tour Open in Delhi, he had to wait only six more months before he stunned everyone into silence by winning the Croatian Open in August. It was an added bonus that his opponent in the final was one of the most popular table tennis players, Timo Boll.  From that moment on, he has just refused to slow down. He made the semifinal of the China Open, lost a close seven-setter against Xu Xin in Sweden and reached the semifinal of the World Tour Grand Finals, where he narrowly lost to an in form Dimitrij Ovtcharov.

If Harimoto had been successful on world stage there was one test he hadn’t yet passed. He hadn’t yet beaten any of the top Chinese players.

The new-year began with the World Team Cup in London, with fans excited with the prospects of a potential China-Japan clash. When China and Japan did meet in the finals, Harimoto was quite soundly out-muscled by an imperious Fan Zhendong.

Many had argued that the “pros” would soon be better prepared to handle Harimoto and he would quickly lose his edge.  But with the top Chinese players it was Harimoto who appeared better prepared with every passing encounter. Against Xu Xin, after his 4-1 loss at the Worlds, he played a competitive seven setter in Sweden. After his loss to Fan Zhendong in London, within no time Harimoto rocked the Table Tennis world again by beating Fan Zhendong at the Asian Cup in Yokohoma. But his crowning glory came late in May and early in June when he followed his China Open win over Zhang Jike (arguably China’s biggest superstar) by an unbelievable 4-2 win at the Japan Open over none other than the best player of all time (my opinion), Ma Long. Ma Long losing a match is a rarity and Ma Long losing a match to a non-Chinese player is just unheard of (he did lose to Timo Boll of Germany and Jeong Sangeun of Korea in 2017). If all this wasn’t enough he went on to win the tournament, beating Lee Sangsu of Korea (a Bronze Medalist at the Worlds in Dusseldorf) and then Zhang Jike again in the final.

Although I have highlighted his best moments, he did have several lows too. The ones that stand out are his loss to the German defender Ruwen Filus at the Qatar Open, his complete demolition by England’s Liam Pitchford at the World Team Cup and then again at the World Team Championships and his defeat (after having beaten Fan Zhendong) against  Jeong Sangeun at the Asian Cup. He does tend to be a little inconsistent. Having said that, thanks to his incredible run, Harimoto managed to break into the world’s top 10 in May 2018.  

Despite his Table Tennis achievements, he his famous for (and very commonly abused online for) his incredibly loud cheering. He cheers almost every point that he wins as if it’s the championship point. This excessive shouting has earned him some enemies among Table Tennis fans across the word. I, however, think Harimoto is an extremely fair and courteous sportsperson. His cho-ing is never in the opponent’s face. He never cheers after winning a lucky point and is prompt in offering his opponent an apology after a fortuitous net- or edge-ball.

What is the reason behind Harimoto’s unmatched ascent? What is the secret ingredient that makes him so lethal?  Based on my limited understanding of the game and whatever I have gleaned from discussion forums on the internet, there appear to be several reasons. Firstly, the game has evolved remarkably fast over the last decade or so. Newer playing styles have emerged. Strokes that were considered blasphemous earlier are now the most common weapons. For example, playing a backhand on the forehand side of the table was taboo until 13 years ago (that was incidentally when I last played competitive Table Tennis). But in the modern game, players routinely move to their forehand side and play a backhand, especially while receiving serves. Although backhands are generally less powerful than forehands, they have one big advantage: more wrist flexibility. Therefore, using lightning quick movements of the wrist, modern players can produce spinny, aggressive backhand strokes that require short backswings. Using these backhand strokes one can attack balls that are short and therefore expected to bounce twice on the table, something that is difficult to do with a forehand stroke. In the midst of this, the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF), for some bizarre reason, decided to change the material of the playing balls in 2013. The newer balls are a shade slower and are less spinny. This has resulted in a more close-to-the-table, super-aggressive style of play becoming popular among the men, who have traditionally preferred counterlooping rallies away from the table. The women on the other hand have always played lightning quick, close-to-the-table rallies, involving shorter strokes. The bottomline is that the older players have had to slightly alter their style of play to suit the modern game. But the younger players have grown up playing this version of the game and therefore are slightly better placed than their older colleagues. In fact, Harimoto is not the only Japanese teenager, who has taken the world by storm. In the run up to the Rio Olympics two Japanese 16-year olds (Miu Hirano and Mima Ito) beat two of the most unbeaten Chinese women - Ding Ning (then already a two-time World Champion and now also an Olympic Champion) and Liu Shiwen (WR1 for a  long period of time). Although order was restored at the Olympics and China swept all the Table Tennis medals, Hirano and Ito have continued to spar with and sometimes emerge victorious against the top Chinese women. Miu Hirnao, won the 2017 Asian Championships, beating Chen Meng, Zhu Yuling and Ding Ning, a feat without a recent parallel. More recently, at the World Team Championship Finals, Mima Ito beat Liu Shiwen in the opening encounter, causing some nervous moments for the Chinese team, who eventually managed to pull off a comfortable 3-1 win over Japan. At the 2018 Japan Open, Ito matched Harimoto’s feat by pulling off a ridiculous come-back in the semis against China’s Chen Xingtong from 3-0 down in games and 9-4 down in the fourth, before beating Wang Manyu (the winner of three World Tour Opens this year) in the final.     

With Chinese dominance under assault (and Harimoto at the vanguard), these are exciting times for international Table Tennis. I think the Chinese will manage to defend their fort as the strongest Table Tennis playing country on the planet, with an endless conveyor belt of breathtaking players emerging out of that country. However, a Japanese gold  medal in the Singles event at the Tokyo Olympics looks a definite possibility, especially given the rule at the Olympics that no Association can send more than two players for the Singles event. Can Harimoto create history (if he hasn’t done it already!) by becoming the youngest ever Olympic Champion?

Only time will tell.