Table tennis: Boll’s successors fail in the quarterfinals

However, on Thursday it became clear: not yet. Maybe another time – the German men didn’t even make it to a duel with the Chinese. After wins against Slovenia (3-0 in the round of 16) and Hong Kong (3-0 in the round of 16), they lost 1-3 to Japan in the quarter-finals and missed out on a medal at the second consecutive team World Cup. That was another shot across the bow. At a time when China is weakening, German men can no longer keep up with the world’s best.

Against Japan, Benedikt Duda, number 13 in the world rankings, initially lost to Tomokazu Harimoto, third in the world rankings, 3-0. Dang Qiu (number 10) then lost 1:3 to Sora Matsushima (number 8) after leading the set 1-0. Patrick Franziska (17th) shortened the score to 1:2 with a strong 3:1 against Shunsuke Togami (18th), but Qiu then lost against Harimoto in three tight sets 0:3.

Before the World Cup, the five German players were asked who they would name as their favorites if they were not allowed to name the series winner China and their own team. Qiu and Franziska chose Japan, Duda and Dimitrij Ovtcharov chose France, and André Bertelsmeier chose Sweden. The 37-year-old Ovtcharov said: “I have never experienced in my career that five or six teams have the potential to become world champions.”

China has dominated team competition for a quarter of a century

To date, the last non-Chinese team world champion for men was Sweden in 2000 with the players Jan-Ove Waldner, Jörgen Persson and Peter Karlsson. Between 2001 and 2024, the Chinese won all eleven finals: six against Germany, two each against Japan and South Korea and one against Belgium.

The fact that the German men didn’t even reach the semi-finals in London is a bitter disappointment, but they met one of their strongest opponents, Japan, in the quarter-finals. “Japan was mentally stronger,” said Franziska. National coach Jörg Roßkopf confessed: “We are extremely disappointed; we have to become a little more consistent and a little better.” The team is still burning for success, he said: “But things have become very tight at the top of the world.”

On Friday, China and France can make a semi-final in their respective quarter-finals against South Korea and Brazil, in which the world numbers one and two dueled. China and France are followed in the ranking by Sweden and Japan – then Germany in number five. “We have to get a better seeding in order to avoid such strong opponents in the quarter-finals,” says Roßkopf. Instead of if-not-now-when-then, we could be facing a scenario in which the men at the top of the world lose ground.