Ito, at just 13 years and 160 days, also became the youngest ever player to win a World Tour title, surpassing China's Guo Yue, who was 13 years and 224 days old when she won the Austrian Open women's doubles title in 2002.

Hirano moves into third in the history books at 13 years and 350 days old.

"We have been training together since we were four-years-old; this is our first title on the World Tour, we trained hard so we deserve it," said Ito.

"We are very happy winning this big title and being the youngest ever players to do so; but we are not satisfied, we want to keep on winning titles."

To accomplish this remarkable feat, the young pair had to overcome Poland's Katarzyna Grzybowska and Natalia Partyka, comparative veterans at 24-years-old.

Despite their age, the young Japanese players made relatively light work of the Polish duo, winning the match in straight sets - 11-9, 11-7, 11-7 - in Magdeburg's GETEC-Arena.

"Our next goal is to play at a World Championships, we want to keep on playing against highly ranked players", added Ito.

"Our dream is to play in the Olympics and we want to play in Tokyo in 2020 but Rio 2016 is first, so we will try to get there first."

Miu Hirano and Mima Ito beat Polish pairing Katarzyna Grzybowska and Natalia Partyka in straight sets to secure the women's doubles crown at the German Open
©ITTF/Action Images Livepic



The victory will have come as a huge shock to Partyka who has set new standards in Paralympic table tennis, with the three-time Paralympic champion having competed in both the Olympic and Paralympic Games at Beijing 2008 and London 2012.

"They played really well; they served and received extremely well which was the key for them and they were just too quick," said Partyka.

"We were nervous going into the match, so we did not have a good start and we never recovered; they were simply better and deserved the victory."

Surprisingly, Ito and Harino's win was not the biggest shock at the ITTF German Open following local hero, and world number 100, Steffen Mengel's historic victory over China's five-time Olympic medallist Wang Hao in the third round of the men's singles. 

Unfortunately for Mengel, his remarkable run was cut short in the semi-final when Japanese sixth seed Jun Mizutani beat him in straight sets to set up a final with German favourite Dimitrij Ovtcharov.

The German second seed avenged his team-mate's loss in the final, beating Mizutani 11-9, 5-11, 9-11, 11-5, 6-11, 11-2, 11-9 in a dramatic encounter.

"This has been a great tournament for me, I have had a lot of tight victories and have played to my ability", said Ovtcharov.

"I am very happy and I am much more confident now heading into the World Championships."

Local favourite Dimitrij Ovtcharov beat Japan's Jun Mizutani to seal the men's singles title to the delight of the 3,000-strong German crowd ©ITTF/Action Images Livepic



Ovtcharov's victory inspired his team-mate Shan Xiaona to a dominant victory over South Korea's number one seed and heavy favourite Seo Hyowon in the women's singles.

The German's four set, 18-16, 11-3, 11-4, 11-5, win sealed her first World Tour crown.

Following his historic loss at the hands of Mengel in the men's singles, Hao paired up with compatriot Lyu Xiang to claim the men's doubles gold, defeating Croatia's Tan Ruiwu and Poland's Wang Zengyi 13-11, 10-12, 11-4, 11-2 in the final.

The next stop on the 2014 World Tour is the Spanish Open, which is due to being on Wednesday (April 2) in Almeria.

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


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