Video: TT11TV via YouTube
Japan's Tomokazu Harimoto won the men's singles at the 29th ITTF-ATTU Asian Championships in Tashkent on 25 October, coming from two games down to beat China's Li Tianyang 3-2.
Li, 19, won the first game 11-1 and the second 11-9. Harimoto then took the next three 11-7, 11-8, 11-7 for the title.
His semi-final was much more comfortable: he beat China's Wen Ruibo 11-5, 11-7, 11-5. The hardest match of his week came in the quarter-finals, where Chinese Taipei's Feng Yi-Hsin won the first two games before Harimoto won the next three, two of them 11-5. Earlier he had beaten China's Huang Youzheng 3-0.
Li reached the final by beating Chinese Taipei's Kuo Guan-Hong in five games. Kuo and Wen took the bronze medals.
It was a good week for Harimoto overall, but not for Japan's men as a team: they lost to South Korea in the team semi-finals, as we reported in our team championships story. Harimoto flew on to France, where Simon Gauzy beat him in the first round of WTT Champions Montpellier, before he won WTT Champions Frankfurt the following week.
The championships ran from 19 to 25 October.
Kit corner
Butterfly lists Harimoto with Zyre 03 on both sides of his Harimoto Tomokazu Innerforce Super ALC. Kuo Guan-Hong also plays Zyre 03 on both sides.
Sources: Xinhua, 25 Oct 2026 · Japan Table Tennis Association · ITTF results: Tashkent 2026 · ATTU · Butterfly: Tomokazu Harimoto
