China sweep Japan 3-0 to win record 24th world title

China finished the centenary World Team Championships the way a dynasty is expected to finish: under pressure, then untouchable. After group-stage defeats to Korea Republic and Sweden had made the defending champions look unusually vulnerable, China answered in the final at OVO Arena Wembley with a ruthless 3-0 sweep of Japan to retain the men’s team title and lift the Swaythling Cup for a record 24th time.

The opening rubber set the tone. Liang Jingkun, pushed higher in the order because of his strong record against Tomokazu Harimoto, fell behind 0-2 and even faced match point as Harimoto attacked early with pace and confidence. China’s bench, led by Wang Hao, urged Liang to slow the tempo and drag the rallies out. Liang followed the script, turned the match into a grind, and then finished with authority, coming back from 8-3 down in the fifth game to win 11-8, 4-11, 11-9, 13-11, 11-8. Japan had reached the men’s world team final for the first time since 2016, and for stretches Harimoto looked ready to make that return memorable.

Instead, Liang’s comeback flipped the evening. Wang Chuqin then extended China’s lead against Sora Matsushima, who came out fearless and briefly threatened to seize control. Wang steadied himself after an early timeout, edged the second game 12-10, and then settled into the level that had carried him through the tournament. His 11-9, 11-1, 8-11, 7-11, 11-7 win followed a pivotal semifinal performance against Korea Republic’s Oh Jungsung and kept China on track for a clean finish.

Lin Shidong closed the job against Shunsuke Togami from the third line of the order, a tactical move designed to avoid Harimoto and play into a favorable matchup. Togami resisted after falling behind, but Lin stayed composed in the key points and completed the sweep. The result stretched China’s men’s run to 12 consecutive world team championships and gave the program a clean sweep in London, where the women also beat Japan 3-0 to add their own title.

The scale of the dominance remains startling. Sweden were the last team to beat China in a men’s final, in Kuala Lumpur in 2000, and China’s men had already owned 11 straight world team titles dating back to that defeat. At the centenary event, staged 100 years after the first world championships in London in 1926, China once again showed that the gap at the top is still measured less by talent than by whether anyone else can survive the final points.