As Chinese communities around the world – including in London – celebrate the Lunar New Year, excitement is also building for the chance to see the country’s teams compete on the grandest stage of OVO Arena Wembley.
China will be part of a huge Bank Holiday Weekend from 2 to 4 May, with a succession of scintillating matches that no die-hard sports fan will want to miss – with the seeding matches on Saturday and Sunday and the first of the Round of 32 matches on Monday.
Click on the link here or the image below to get tickets to watch table tennis at its best.
In the global sporting landscape, there are few examples of one country dominating the top step of the podium as China has done in table tennis.
Their men’s and women’s teams have each won the world team title 23 times – and each has failed to emerge victorious only once this century.
In the case of the men’s team, you have to go back to 2000 in Kuala Lumpur to find the last time another country conquered the world – and it was Sweden who took gold as their legendary trio of Jan-Ove Waldner, Jorgen Persson and Peter Karlsson each claimed their fourth team title.
It was the seventh time in nine editions of the World Championships that Sweden and China met in the gold medal match, with China winning four and Sweden two of their previous meetings.
China and Sweden will reignite their rivalry in Stage 1a, in the same group as England and South Korea, while the top seven seeds and hosts England will play for seeding position in the Stage 2 knockouts.
The Chinese women were just as difficult to beat, but Singapore managed to do so at the 2010 World Cup in Moscow.
Inspired by Feng Tianwei, who defeated both Ding Ning and Liu Shiwen 3-2, Singapore became the latest country to win a world team title for the first time.
The last time China did not win either world team title was in 1991, when Sweden defeated Yugoslavia in the men’s final and a unified Korean team defeated China to win the women’s crown in one of the greatest stories of all World Championships.
This time, Chinese women will start against Romania, Chinese Taipei and the Republic of South Korea in phase 1a. Can anyone stop them from taking the #1 seed position in Phase 2?
What is England’s record against China?
England’s men will meet China for the ninth time at a World Cup – and they won the first two meetings.
In 1953, the English men defeated China on their way to becoming world champions in Bucharest. They beat them 5-0 in the group stage and then defeated Hungary in the final employing the legendary trio of Johnny Leach, Richard Bergmann and Aubrey Simons.
England won 5-2 against China at the 1956 World Cup in Tokyo, but China have won every meeting since – in 1975, 1977 (in Birmingham), 1981, 1987, 1993 and 1995.
They also met in London in the 2018 Team World Cup, a 3-0 win for China, which was notable for Liam Pitchford’s brilliant match against Fan Zhendong – watch the highlights below.
The England women will not face China this time, although they have a similar record to the men’s team, having won the first two meetings in 1953 and 1956 and losing all eight subsequent meetings, the last and only one this century in the group stage in 2010.
The other notable encounters took place during the iconic Ping Pong Diplomacy tour of China in 1971 and Britain’s subsequent reciprocal tour of China later that same year.
A total of five matches were played between England and various Chinese teams in Beijing, Shanghai and Tientsin, with English men (Tony Clayton, Trevor Taylor and Alan Hydes) winning three and losing two, and English women (Jill Shirley (Parker) and Pauline Piddock with the same record.
The UK tour included matches in Manchester, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Dublin, Birmingham and at Crystal Palace, involving teams from Great Britain, Scotland and Ireland as well as England.
Read more about them here
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