The upsets keep on coming at ITTF World Team Table Tennis Championships Finals in London with Sweden condemning defending champion China to its second defeat in men\u2019s team Group 1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the receiving end of a shock 3-1 loss against Korea on Saturday night, the Chinese men\u2019s team were determined to put things right, but the level of the opposition didn\u2019t get any easier with Sweden awaiting in the final group match.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wang Chuqin laid down the marker for China, delivering his devastating best to leave Anton Kallberg in his dust, winning 11-8, 11-5, 11-6, but then came a huge, unexpected twist. Cue Elias Ranefur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The World No.70 stepped up to the table as the overwhelming underdog against Lin Shidong, but in an astonishing twist of fate Ranefur completed one of the upsets of the week emerging 11-9, 11-6, 3-11, 6-11, 11-9 victorious, leaving Shidong in a state of dejection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Obviously, I\u2019m super happy with the win and to help to win against China which is huge. Super happy with my performance, I feel like I played the way I wanted to play, in a very aggressive manner, putting a lot of pressure on him. I do have some shots that are a bit unusual, like my long serves and some of my receives catches the opponents off guard. Of course I wanted to come out in a strong way against Lin Shidong, that\u2019s pretty obvious. He changed a little bit and I wasn\u2019t able to put enough pressure on him in the third and fourth games, he was also leading in the fifth, but I\u2019m happy I came back,” said Ranefur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With Truls Moregard squeezing past Liang Jingkun in the following match 11-7, 9-11, 11-9, 3-11, 12-10, Sweden needed just one more win to put the result beyond doubt. Ranefur returned to the table eager to unleash another unforgettable performance, but Chuqin was equally as ruthless as he was in the match opener to win 12-10, 11-6, 11-4, single-handedly keeping China in the tie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Given a second chance to make an impact, Shidong and Anton Kallberg met in the fifth and final clash with the match on the line. There was very little to separate the two as Lin and Kallberg began to feel the weight of the occasion. But the latter player stood up to the pressure, converting a four-game win 12-10, 10-12, 11-8, 11-8 to lead Sweden past China for the first time since 2000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As celebrations broke out in the Swedish team, the symbolism of the victory wasn\u2019t lost on the players. Sweden had successfully topped Group 1, opening up their path to gold nicely, while proving they have what it takes to beat the very best.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
France successfully come out on top in men\u2019s team Group 2, completing a stunning comeback from 0-2 down to deny Japan 3-2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The silver medal team from two years ago, there was real belief in the French ranks that a gold medal could well be on the cards this time out in London. But their perfect start looked under severe threat on Sunday evening as Japan opened up a commanding 0-2 lead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was now all up to Flavien Coton to turn things around. One more defeat and the match would be all over, but that didn\u2019t faze the 18-year-old one bit. Despite trailing Shunsuke Togami three games in, Coton would successfully force a decider, where he saved not one, not two but four match points to win 6-11, 11-4, 10-12, 11-9, 14-12 and give France a lifeline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt’s\u00a0an amazing win from the team. We all won one match and for me it was my first match with the national team, so it was not easy at the start of the match. But I managed to keep my calm and to come back from 2-2 (5-8, 8-10) to save four match points, so it was a really crazy match for me and for the team,\u201d said Coton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
OVO Arena Wembley then witnessed a Lebrun brothers masterclass as Felix Lebrun blew Tomokazu Harimoto out of the water 11-9, 11-2, 11-4 before Alexis Lebrun sealed the deal, holding his nerve to fend off Sora Matsushima 11-9, 11-8, 8-11, 9-11, 11-9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The upset of the night, however, belonged to Chinese Taipei\u2019s men\u2019s team, who picked up their first win of the week against Germany.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lin Yun-Ju led by example, putting three games past Dang Qiu without reply, winning 11-5, 11-8, 11-8, but the more eye-catching results were still to come. 17-year-old Kuo Guan-Hong defied the odds at two games down in the third match, fighting back to a 13-15, 8-11, 11-5, 12-10, 12-10 victory, leaving Patrick Franziska scratching his head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Feng Yi-Hsin followed up in style, upstaging Qiu in another shock twist winning 12-10, 7-11, 11-3, 9-11, 11-9 as Chinese Taipei got a confidence-boosting win under its belt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The sole women\u2019s team match of the session also featured Chinese Taipei, but the outcome was very different with Romania proving a test too great.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An early setback in the match appeared to give the Romanians the wake up call they needed, as Andreea Dragoman got the ball rolling with her win 12-10, 7-11, 19-17, 13-11 over Yeh Yi-Tian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Elizabeta Samara then put Romania in front with a convincing display against Wu Ying Syuan, winning 12-10, 11-9, 11-7, before Bernadette Szocs put the cherry on the cake, outclassing Yeh Yi-Tian 11-6, 11-9, 12-10 to bag second position in Group 1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The upsets keep on coming at ITTF World Team Table Tennis Championships Finals in London with Sweden condemning<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12583,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[65],"class_list":["post-12582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsbeat","tag-table-tennis"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/RANEFUR-Elias-.jpg",1920,1080,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/RANEFUR-Elias--150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/RANEFUR-Elias--300x169.jpg",300,169,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/RANEFUR-Elias--768x432.jpg",640,360,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/RANEFUR-Elias--1024x576.jpg",640,360,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/RANEFUR-Elias--1536x864.jpg",1536,864,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/RANEFUR-Elias-.jpg",1920,1080,false],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/RANEFUR-Elias--825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/RANEFUR-Elias--590x410.jpg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"Newsbeat<\/a>","tag_info":"Newsbeat","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/RANEFUR-Elias-.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12582"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12584,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12582\/revisions\/12584"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}