(born 14 April 2000) 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. She won Women's World Cup in 2016 as the youngest ever winner. She won the women's singles at the 2017 Asian Table Tennis Championships by sweeping away three top Chinese players. She competed at the

2020 Summer Olympics The , officially the and also known as , was an international multi-sport event held from 23 July to 8 August 2021 in Tokyo, Japan, with some preliminary events that began on 21 July. Tokyo was selected as the host city during the 1 ...

, winning a silver medal in women's team event.

Career

2014

In March 2014, she and Mima Ito won their first doubles title at ITTF World Tour German Open. They became the youngest ever winners of the doubles competition in the ITTF World Tour. She was part of the Japanese team in 2014 Asian Games, but lost to China in the final. In April 2014 she won her second doubles title with Mima Ito at the ITTF World Tour Spanish open. In December 2014, she won the doubles title with Mima Ito at the ITTF World Tour Grand Finals in Bangkok. The pair defeated Singapore pair of

Feng Tianwei Feng Tianwei (, ) is a Singaporean table tennis player. Born in Harbin, China, she permanently moved to Singapore at the age of 20 under the former Foreign Sports Talent Scheme in March 2007 and commenced her international career in competi ...

and

Yu Mengyu Yu Mengyu (; born 18 August 1989) is a retired Chinese-born Singaporean table tennis player. Born in Liaoning, China, Yu left China in 2006 at the age of 17 to join the Singapore Table Tennis Association (STTA). She was part of the team that ...

in the semi-finals and Poland pair of Katarzyna Grzybowska and

Natalia Partyka Natalia Dorota Partyka (born 27 July 1989) is a Polish table tennis player. Born without a right hand and forearm, she participates in competitions for able-bodied athletes as well as in competitions for athletes with disabilities. Partyka reach ...

in the final.

2015

On 5 July 2015, Miu Hirano and Mima Ito won the Women's Doubles title at the ITTF World Tour Korean Open. This was their third doubles title since 2014.

2016

In April 2016, she won her first women's singles title in ITTF World Tour Polish Open by defeating

in the Final. On 9 October 2016, with the absence of Chinese players, she seized the opportunity to win the Women's World Cup in Philadelphia, USA after defeating Mima Ito in the quarterfinals,

in the semi-final and

Cheng I-ching Cheng I-ching (; born 15 February 1992) is a Taiwanese table tennis player. She competed at the 2016 Summer Olympics in the women's singles event, in which she was eliminated in the quarterfinals by Li Xiaoxia, and as part of the Chinese Taipei ...

in the final. This marks the youngest women's World Cup Champion and the first non-Chinese player to win the title.

2017

On 22 January 2017, she won All Japan Championships by defeating

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 ...

4–2 in the final at the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium. On 14 April 2017, she defeated the world ranked No.1 player

Ding Ning Ding Ning (; born 20 June 1990) is a former Chinese table tennis player. She was the winner of women's singles in the 2011 World Table Tennis Championships. At the 2015 World Table Tennis Championships, Ding won her second world title in ...

at the 2017 ITTF Asian Table Tennis Championships. The following day of the tournament, she defeated the world ranked No.2 player Zhu Yuling in the Semifinals and

Chen Meng Chen Meng (; born 15 January 1994) is a Chinese table tennis player and the current World No. 2 in Women's Singles. She joined the provincial team when she was 9 and joined the national team when she was only 13 in 2007. She is the women's singl ...

world ranked No.5 in the Finals, where she set a new record for the youngest winner of the Asian Championships in the singles event. She became the third non-Chinese player ever and the first non-Chinese player since Chire Koyama in 1996 to win the singles title. In the 2017 World Table Tennis Championships in Düsseldorf, Hirano progressed to the singles semi-finals but lost to

of China. She obtained a joint bronze medal with Liu Shiwen of China. This ended a long medal drought for Japan in women's singles at the world championships since Toshiko Kowada achieved the gold medal in 1969 World Championships.

2021

Hirano represented Japan at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics in the team event. However, she will not play in the singles event. In March, Hirano played in WTT Doha, but suffered disappointing upsets in both the WTT Contender and WTT Star Contender event, including a loss to Shin Yubin in a potential Olympic Team preview. Hirano won silver in the team event at the Tokyo Olympics.

Finals

Singles

4 titles, 5 runners-up

Doubles

8 titles, 9 runners-up

Performance timeline

(W) won; (F) finalist; (SF) semi-finalist; (QF) quarter-finalist; (#R) rounds 4, 3, 2, 1
(S) singles event; (D) women's doubles event; (T) team event

Teams

Teams joined in T.League: * Nissay Red Elf (2018–2022) * Kinoshita Abyell Kanagawa (2022–)

Awards

*2016: ITTF Breakthrough Star of the Year

Records

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the concept i ...

Women's singles the youngest Champion *

Asian Championship An Asian Championship is a top level international sports competition between Asian athletes or sports teams representing their respective countries or professional sports clubs. List of Championships (Summer Olympic Sports) ;Aquatics * Asia ...

Women's singles the youngest Champion

In popular culture

Hirano made her acting debut in the 2018

Fuji TV JOCX-DTV (channel 8), branded as and colloquially known as CX, is a Japanese television station based in Odaiba, Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Owned and operated by the it is the key station of the Fuji News Network (FNN) and the Fuji Network S ...

drama '' The Confidence Man JP''.