(by Steve Hopkins, photo ITTF)
The ITTF Mixed Team World Cup Chengdu 2025 has delivered a new twist on the sport. It’s a race to 8 games played with your country’s top men and women rotating through three doubles and two singles matches. The match is mixed doubles where three games are played, the second three games are women’s singles, the third set of three games are singles by the men, the fourth set game is men’s doubles, and the final set is women’s doubles. The first team to win 8 games is the winner, whether that mark is achieved in the last game of the fifth match (8-7) or in the third set of matches after an 8-0 sweep.
The first two stages were group play. There were four groups of 4 teams in the first stage. Team USA was the bottom seed in Group 3, and our team lost all three matches (to Korea, Sweden, and Taipei) with a final tally of 3 games won to 24 games lost.
In that first stage, the top two teams in each group qualified to advance, and those 8 squads finished exactly by seed. China and Hong Kong advanced in Group 1, Japan and Croatia advanced in Group 2, Korea Republic and Sweden advanced in Group 3, and Germany and France advanced in Group 4.
Stage 2 also went exactly by seed. China, Japan, Germany, and Korea finished 1-4 and advanced to the third stage. China was 56-16, Japan was 52-25, Germany was 47-38, and Korea Republic was 41-44. The unfortunate team that finished just outside of the top four was France. The French squad actually finished with a better winning percentage (they were 44-45) but they only managed 10 points – losing just one more set than the Korea Republic team who scored 11 points.
The final stage is the semifinals with China taking on the Korea Republic and Germany taking on Japan. These matches will be played tomorrow morning, and then after a brief break – we’ll see the Bronze Medal match (for third) followed by the Final.
As a preview, China will be favored in each match over the Korea Republic with a pair of World No. 1 players (Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha) in the opening Mixed Doubles match, Kuai Man in Women’s Singles, Lin Shidong in Men’s Singles, followed by doubles pairs that could match World 1 and 2 in both Men’s and Women’s. When Korea faced them in the group stage, China won 8-0.
The Japan versus German match-up is more intriguing. Japan has Tomokazu Harimoto and Sora Matsushima who are higher seeds than any of the German men, but Dang Qiu, Franziska, and Duda have all spent time in the World’s Top 10 in the recent past. On the women’s side, Japan has a decisive advantage, but Germany has strong players capable of upsets with both Kaufmann and Mittleham. When they met in the groups, Japan won 8-3, so Germany will need big performances across their core players.
Action picks up again tomorrow.
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