To a professional winner, losing is more than a problem. It presents nothing less than an existential crisis. Tomokazu Harimoto (pictured) is one such professional winner. The 17-year-old from Japan has been terrorizing his elders for years on the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) World Tour. Harimoto is now ranked fifth in the world, the highest listing for any male outside of China. This week, ITTF action resumed in the form of the World Table Tennis (WTT) Middle East Hub, a series of world-class tournaments in Doha, Qatar. First up on the roster was the WTT Contender, which Harimoto suddenly found himself headlining when the entire Chinese contingent abruptly withdrew from the Hub, citing concerns over the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. With China gone, Japan occupied the top spots in both singles draws. While Harimoto headlined the men's seeding, his 20-year-old countrywoman Mima Ito led a strong showing of Japanese women in the tournament. Thus far, the world #3 Ito has justified her top billing. Today, she advanced to the women's finals with a 4-1 victory over Singapore's Yu Mengyu. Ito will face her compatriot Hina Hayata tomorrow with a $15,000 first-place prize and 400 world ranking points on the line. While Japan is assured of the women's singles title, its chances of a clean sweep were dashed in the semis when Harimoto clashed with Germany's Dimitrij Ovtcharov, ranked 12th in the world. Harimoto led 2-0, halfway to victory in the best-of-seven match, when Ovtcharov began hammering backhands like Thor playing Whack-A-Mole. Four games later, and Ovtcharov was in the final while a stunned Harimoto tried to figure out what happened. Unfortunately for the world-weary wunderkind, it is not Harimoto's only collapse as of late. In his last two official ITTF outings, he also squandered big leads. On November 15 at the World Cup, Harimoto surrendered a 3-1 advantage to Ma Long in the semis. Just four days later at the 2020 ITTF Finals, he relinquished the same 3-1 lead to South Korea's Jang Woojin in the round of 16. For all of Harimoto's undeniable talent, his play suffers from a physical anomaly. Namely, his Achilles' heel seems to be located in his head. Given all that he has accomplished despite the emotional and hormonal vagaries of adolescence, it seems inevitable that he will right the ship. Tomokazu Harimoto has all the tools needed to be an all time-great, if he can only overcome his most dangerous opponent: Himself.

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