(by Steve Hopkins)
China won. Many articles about past team events could have been summed up with just those two words. In this 2024 rendition of the ITTF World Team Table Tennis Championships Finals Busan, China won – but the margin of victory was not what we have come to expect. There were clear challenges posed to China’s dominance. The first shot across China’s bow came in the group play for Women’s teams where India won the first and third matches and fell just one upset short. China’s men dominated throughout, but in their Semifinal matchup against Korea they also fell behind twice and needed to win the final two matches just to advance to the Final. The third of the tight matches was in the Women’s Final when Japan won the second and third matches to lead 2-1 before once again succumbing to the top seed. Yes, both Chinese teams won… But this year, both the men and the women were within one match of failure (the women were actually in that position twice). Perhaps things are tightening and this Summer in Paris will see some new parity. Perhaps the Olympic summation article will be more nuanced than “China won”.
Fan Zhendong finished 8-0 – he was the best player on the best team. That said, he didn’t finish with the most wins (or the best record), that honor goes to Kazakhstan’s Kirill Gerassimenko who finished with a record of 9-0. Darko Jorgic was 8-0 carrying Slovenia to the Round of 16, Lee Sang Su was 5-0 (and that included a big upset win over Ma Long in Korea’s semifinal match with China), and Wong Chun Ting was 7-0 anchoring Hong Kong into the Main Draw. The two players with the most matches were Lin Yun-Ju of Taipei and Jonathan Groth of Denmark – both finished 9-2 and were the only players who logged more than 10 matches. TeamUSA’s Nikhil Kumar finished 4-2, the only American player with a winning record (though Jishan Lang’s 2-3 record included a disqualification after he had won the match at the table) – the American squad topped England and Saudi Arabia and missed the Main Draw by the narrowest of margins.
On the Women’s side, the fact that the main three Chinese women each lost a match is news (Sun Yingsha was 8-1, Wang Yidi was 4-2, and Chen Meng was 7-1). Taipei’s Cheng I-Ching finished 8-0, a feat matched by Germany’s Nina Mittelham, and Japan’s Miu Hirano. Two players played ten matches: India’s Manika Batra finished 6-4 and Hong Kong’s Doo Hoi Kem finished 8-2.
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