France stun Japan with 0-2 comeback to keep gold hopes alive

France looked finished at 0-2 down, then one 18-year-old changed everything. Flavien Coton saved four match points against Shunsuke Togami and dragged France back into its Men’s Team Group 2 meeting with Japan, a 3-2 comeback at OVO Arena Wembley in London that kept the French gold-medal push alive.

Coton won 6-11, 11-4, 10-12, 11-9, 14-12 in his first senior national-team appearance at a World Team Championships Finals, a debut that came with France one loss from a damaging defeat. Instead, his composure turned the match on its head. Japan had seized the tie early and was one point away from closing the door, but Coton refused to blink, surviving the pressure and handing France the opening it needed.

From there, France’s proven names did the rest. Félix Lebrun flattened Tomokazu Harimoto 11-9, 11-2, 11-4, a statement win that wiped out any sense that Japan still owned the momentum. Then Alexis Lebrun held off Sora Matsushima 11-9, 11-8, 8-11, 9-11, 11-9 to complete the turnaround and seal a result that looked impossible after the first two matches.

The scale of the comeback matters because France did not arrive in London as a lightweight. The French men came in after winning silver at the 2024 World Team Championships, and this result reinforced the idea that they are not just capable of making noise, they are built to threaten for the title. Coton’s world ranking, No. 23 senior and No. 19 youth, only sharpens the point: this was not a lucky swing from a forgotten reserve, but a high-level player holding his nerve in the highest leverage moment of the night.

The same session also tightened the rest of Men’s Team Group 2. Chinese Taipei beat Germany for its first win of the week, with Lin Yun-Ju beating Dang Qiu in straight games and both Kuo Guan-Hong and Feng Yi-Hsin winning five-game matches, including Kuo’s comeback from two games down against Patrick Franziska. With the event running from April 28 to May 10 and group-stage results feeding straight into the knockout bracket, every swing in Group 2 carries real weight. France’s escape over Japan did more than preserve a match, it showed that when the tie is hanging by a thread, France has three players who can still pull it back.