is a Japanese

table tennis Table tennis, also known as ping-pong and whiff-whaff, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight ball, also known as the ping-pong ball, back and forth across a table using small solid rackets. It takes place on a hard table div ...

player.

Life and career

1993–2010: Early life and background

Yoshimura was born in

Ibaraki Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Ibaraki Prefecture has a population of 2,871,199 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of . Ibaraki Prefecture borders Fukushima Prefecture to the north, Tochigi Prefecture ...

to a Filipina mother and a Japanese father. His first name is a Japanese transliteration of the Tagalog word "Mahal", meaning "beloved".

2011–present

In 2011, while in junior high school, he competed in the February Table Tennis Tournament Japan where he advanced to the top 12. He defeated Kazuhiro Zhang in the semi-finals but lost to

Jun Mizutani is a retired Japanese table tennis player. He became the youngest Japanese national champion at the age of 17. His consecutive singles titles at the national championships from 2007 to 2011 made him the first man to win the event five times in ...

in the final game. His achievements include the Asian Championships (

New Delhi New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament Ho ...

, India; the first victory of a Japanese player in the men's singles) and the All Japan Table Tennis Championships. At the 2015 World Table Tennis Championships, Yoshimura won a silver medal in the

mixed doubles Mixed doubles or mixed pairs is a form of mixed-sex sports that consists of teams of one man and one woman. This variation of competition is prominent in curling and racket sports, such as tennis, table tennis and badminton (where it is known as ...

event with

Kasumi Ishikawa (born 23 February 1993) is a Japanese table tennis player. A regular member of the Japanese national team, she won a silver medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics, a bronze at the 2016 Summer Olympics, and a silver medal at the 2020 Summer Olympics ...

. At the 2017 World Table Tennis Championships, Yoshimura won a gold medal in the

event with

Career records

*Japan Top 12 Table Tennis Tournament (2011) **Men's singles runner-up *World Junior Table Tennis Championships (2011) **3rd in men's singles **3rd in men's doubles *Interscholastic athletic competition (2011) **Men's doubles winner **3rd in men's singles table tennis *Asian Junior Table Tennis Championships (2011) **Men's doubles runner up **Won men's singles *All Japan Table Tennis Championships (2012) **Won the men's singles *Japan Open (2015) **Men's singles runner-up

In popular culture

Maharu Yoshimura had a minor role in the 2017 film ''

Mixed Doubles Mixed doubles or mixed pairs is a form of mixed-sex sports that consists of teams of one man and one woman. This variation of competition is prominent in curling and racket sports, such as tennis, table tennis and badminton (where it is known as ...

''. In a 2016 segment of the Japanese variety show ''Ningen Kansatsu Variety Monitoring'' (ニンゲン観察バラエティモニタリング), Yoshimura and Koki Niwa disguised themselves as two old men and proceeded to shock normal folks in table tennis.

References

External links

Official Website
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Yoshimura, Maharu 1993 births Living people Sportspeople from Ibaraki Prefecture Japanese people of Filipino descent Japanese male table tennis players Table tennis players at the 2016 Summer Olympics Olympic medalists in table tennis Olympic silver medalists for Japan Olympic table tennis players of Japan Medalists at the 2016 Summer Olympics Universiade medalists in table tennis World Table Tennis Championships medalists Universiade silver medalists for Japan Medalists at the 2013 Summer Universiade Aichi Institute of Technology alumni 21st-century Japanese people