China won the women’s team title for the 24th time at the Table Tennis World Championships in London.
In the sixth final duel with Germany’s semi-final conqueror Japan at a World Cup tournament in a row, the team led by world number one Sun Yingsha achieved a 3-2 victory and thus celebrated its seventh World Cup gold in a row. The Japanese, on the other hand, have to wait for their first World Cup triumph since 1971. The last title holder before China’s ongoing winning streak was Singapore in Moscow in 2010.
European champions Germany were eliminated 3-0 against Japan in the semi-finals of the anniversary World Cup 100 years after their first title fights in the British metropolis. However, by making it into the round of the best four teams, Sabine Winter, ninth in the world rankings, and her teammates had already secured the fourth World Cup medal for a German women’s team in post-war World Cup history. Romania was the second European team to make it to the podium on the Thames (0-3 in the semi-final against China).
One day after its success against the selection of the German Table Tennis Federation (DTTB), Japan was not only able to annoy the Chinese, who competed with a trio from the top seven in the world rankings: in view of being behind twice, the long-term winners were completely unexpectedly threatened with falling from the World Cup throne. However, world champion Sun was able to equalize both times and gave world number two Wang Manyu the assist for the winning point after more than three hours of play.
Following the women’s final, the second part of the Chinese-Japanese international match will take place in the men’s final (5:00 p.m. / Dyn). After the end of its 26-year series of World Cup games without defeat in the previous preliminary round (1:3 against South Korea and 2:3 against Sweden), China wants to at least extend its title subscription, which has been valid since 2001, for the eleventh time. The 24th World Cup title for the Olympic champions would be equivalent to the 21st World Cup double for the teams from the Middle Kingdom. Japan, which knocked the German team out of the tournament 3-1 in the quarter-finals, is hoping for its first World Cup triumph on the Thames since 1969 in Munich.
In the semifinals, China beat European champions France 3-1 in the new edition of the 2024 World Cup final in Busan. Japan reached the final by beating Taiwan 3-0.
