Luxembourg Stuns Brazil 3-2 in Women’s Team Round of 32

Luxembourg did more than survive a nerve-jangling tie in London. By edging Brazil 3-2 in the women’s team Round of 32, it showed how a compact, disciplined squad can turn a best-of-five knockout into a lesson in composure, with three players delivering under maximum pressure and one 62-year-old veteran helping anchor the upset.

The result mattered because Stage 2 of the women’s event is straight knockout from the Round of 32 onward, with no margin for recovery once a tie starts to tilt. Luxembourg and Brazil were playing as one of the final Round of 32 matches as the Top 16 was being confirmed, and the match reflected the brutal logic of the format: first to three rubbers advanced, while one lapse could end a campaign. Luxembourg found the steadier hands when it counted most, and that difference carried it into the Round of 16.

Brazil opened on the front foot when Bruna Takahashi beat Sarah De Nutte 3-1, and the Takahashi sisters immediately put Luxembourg on notice. Ni Xia Lian answered with a five-game win over Giulia Takahashi to level the tie, then Enisa Sadikovic followed with another 3-2 escape against Laura Watanabe to push Luxembourg ahead. Brazil still had one more surge left. Bruna Takahashi returned and outlasted Ni Xia Lian 3-2 to force a winner-take-all fifth rubber, and for a moment the tie looked ready to swing back Brazil’s way.

That was the pressure point, and Sarah De Nutte handled it with the cleanest performance of the night. She beat Giulia Takahashi 3-0 in the decider, denying Brazil the control it had kept trying to seize and sending Luxembourg through. In a format where every rubber changes the tone of a tie, De Nutte’s straight-games finish was the clearest statement of the evening: Luxembourg did not blink when the match demanded a response.

The upset also carried a wider significance for the sport. The 2026 ITTF World Team Table Tennis Championships Finals run from 28 April to 10 May in London, marking the centenary return of the world championships to England, where the first edition was staged in 1926. Played across Copper Box Arena and Wembley Arena, the event has put the Corbillon Cup race back on a global stage, and Luxembourg’s win added another reminder that women’s team table tennis is not only about traditional powers. It is also about timing, trust, and who can absorb the final, heaviest point. Luxembourgs’s revenge over Brazil, after losing a similar contest two years earlier, made the breakthrough feel even bigger.