On December 5, Beijing time, the 2024 ITTF Mixed Team World Cup ended the 5th match day competition in Chengdu, and the two teams of Japan and South Korea, which had remained undefeated, lost on the same day, Japan lost 2-8 to Romania, South Korea lost to China 4-8, and the national table tennis won 8-4 and 8-0 clean sheets against Hong Kong, China.
After the end of this match day, the national table tennis became the only team to maintain a golden body of victory, and won 6 consecutive victories since the start of the competition! Effective results in the second stage: the national table tennis won all 4 games, the winning and losing games were 32-6, and the net win reached +26!
The latest ranking for the second stage
The latest rankings of the second stage are released: the defending champion Chinese team is leading strongly, the South Korean team, the Romanian team, and the Japanese team are temporarily ranked 2nd to 4th, it can be clearly seen that the gap between the top 4 and the last 4 is very obvious, it can be said that it is broken, in fact, the top 4 promotion places in the second stage have no suspense, basically China, Japan, South Korea + Romania have entered the third stage of the top 4 knockouts.
Among the top 4 teams, the Romanian team can be said to be a big dark horse! The Romanian team qualified for the second place in Group C in the first stage, and the South Korean team in the same group won all 3 games to advance, so when entering the second stage of the round robin of the top 8, the Romanian team lost 3-8 to the South Korean team in the first stage to the second stage, and the Romanian team was at the bottom of the initial standings in the second stage!
Stage 2 Initial Rankings
Now, with three consecutive wins in the second stage of 8-3 France, 8-0 USA and 8-2 Japan, Romania has moved up its ranking from bottom to third! Currently, Romania have an effective record of 3 wins and 1 loss in the second period, with an overall win-loss figure of 27-13 and a goal difference of +14.
On this match day, Japan defeated the United States 8-3 and lost 2-8 to Romania, South Korea lost 4-8 to China and 8-1 to the United States, and the effective results of Japan and South Korea in the second stage were also 3-1: Japan +11 and South Korea +14. Japan was knocked out of the top three by Romania and dropped to fourth, while South Korea was in second place ahead of Romania by virtue of their head-to-head record.
Starting from the 5th Hong Kong, China, the gap with the top 4 is quite obvious, and the Hong Kong, China, Germany, France, and United States teams basically missed the next stage of the top 4 knockout rounds.