Chinese table tennis suffers shocking defeat at world championship

Completely dominating the world table tennis scene for decades, but recently, the Chinese team suffered an unbelievable defeat against Taiwan (Taipei, China).

Chinese table tennis suffers shocking defeat at World Youth Championship - Photo: ITTF

The above defeat took place in the U19 team event, within the framework of the 2025 World Youth Table Tennis Championship.

Although it is only a youth tournament, this is still the table tennis arena that China has dominated for many years. The tournament is divided into 2 age groups: U15 and U19, and in the U19 group, China has always dominated.

Typically, in the 2023 tournament, China won all 7 events of the U19 age group. They often only lost the U15 events, when the minor players had not yet perfected their skills.

In this year's tournament, China continues to send a very strong squad in the U19 age group. A typical example is Wen Ruibo - a player who climbed to 34th in the world when he was only 18 years old. And he is considered to be the successor of the group Wang Chuqin, Lin Shidong...

Or like Li Hechen - a 16-year-old table tennis prodigy who can compete on par with many powerful players from other countries.

With this very strong lineup, the Chinese U19 team was unexpectedly defeated 1-3 by the Taiwanese team (Taipei, China) in the quarter-finals of the tournament.

The shock came in the first match, when Wen Ruibo lost 2-3 to Hsu Hsien-Chia, who is currently ranked 248th in the world, 200 places lower than Wen.

Hsu started impressively to win the first two games 12-10, 11-9, before Wen fought back and tied the match at 2-2. But then in the deciding game, Hsu continued to surprise the Chinese team by winning 11-9.

Taiwanese table tennis prodigy Kuo Guang Hong - Photo: ITTF

In the second match, Li Hechen lost 1-3 to Kuo Guan-Hong. This was an understandable defeat because Kuo is also considered a "prodigy" of Taiwan. He is 1 year older than Li, and is currently ranked 65th in the world.

Sun Yang won the next match, helping China to tie the score 1-2, but then Wen Ruibo disappointed again when he lost to Kuo in the fourth match. China lost 1-3 in the end.

This defeat was described by Chinese media as "the biggest shock to youth table tennis in many years". Through that, it also shows that many other table tennis groups in Asia are on the rise.

HUY DANG

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/bong-ban-trung-quoc-thua-soc-o-giai-the-gioi-20251125095642069.htm