Croatia edge Italy 3-2, return to World Team Championships Round of 16

Croatia nearly turned a commanding start into a collapse before Andrej Gacina steadied the tie and sent them back to the World Team Championships Round of 16. In a knockout match that swung hard in both directions at the ITTF World Team Table Tennis Championships Finals London 2026, Croatia edged Italy 3-2 at OVO Arena Wembley and matched the Busan benchmark that had defined their previous breakthrough.

The opening looked routine, almost too routine. Gacina put Croatia ahead with a 3-0 win over John Oyebode, 11-9, 11-3, 11-7, and Tomislav Pucar followed with another straight-games victory, beating Matteo Mutti 3-0, 11-3, 11-8, 11-7. At 2-0, Croatia had the kind of cushion that should settle a five-match tie. Instead, the pressure started to creep in, and Italy found a way to make the match ugly.

Danilo Faso dragged Italy back into the contest with a 3-1 win over Ivor Ban, 11-6, 11-5, 8-11, 12-10, and Oyebode then took the tie to the edge by outlasting Pucar in a five-game thriller, 3-2, 8-11, 11-6, 7-11, 14-12, 11-7. That was the moment Croatia could have slipped. After building a 2-0 lead, they were suddenly one rubber from elimination, with the momentum squarely on Italy’s side and every point carrying knockout-stage weight.

Instead, Croatia answered the only way team table tennis allows: by surviving the last swing. Gacina went back up in the deciding rubber and finished the job against Mutti, closing out the tie and keeping Croatia alive in London. It was the kind of win that says more about a team than a comfortable sweep ever could. Croatia did not just play well at the start; they withstood the panic when the match turned.

That matters in a field of 64 men’s teams at a tournament running from 28 April to 10 May 2026, staged as a centenary return of the World Championships to England, 100 years after the first edition in 1926. Croatia had already gone through the group stage unbeaten, and Italy arrived with a perfect record of its own, which is what made the result so sharp. This was not a favorable draw survived by a heavy favorite. It was a hard-earned European knife fight, and Croatia came through with the composure that knockout table tennis rewards most.