Czech Open winner Tomokazu Harimoto was honored Thursday for his standout performance in 2017 by receiving the Breakthrough Star award from the International Table Tennis Federation.
Harimoto became the youngest men's singles winner on the ITTF World Tour when he beat former world No. 1 Timo Boll of Germany in the Czech Open final in August at 14 years and 61 days old.
"I was disappointed last year because I was nominated but didn't win," Harimoto said. "I'm glad that I delivered better results than last year. It was the best year of my table tennis career."