Wong Chun Ting rallies past Jonathan Groth at United States Smash 2026

Wong Chun Ting survived a brutal five-game swing against Jonathan Groth, turning an early hole into a 5-11, 12-10, 12-10, 8-11, 11-6 victory at United States Smash 2026 in Ontario, California. The win sent Wong into the Round of 32 and kept him alive in a men’s field that has been full of danger from the first ball at the Ontario Convention Center.

The match was decided in the narrowest pockets of momentum. Groth burst out with an 11-5 opening game, but Wong answered by stealing back-to-back deuces, 12-10 and 12-10, to seize control of the match. Groth forced one more swing by taking the fourth game 11-8, yet Wong steadied himself in the decider and finished it 11-6. Two consecutive 12-10 games did the most damage, because they turned a promising start from Groth into the kind of emotional grind that veteran players often know how to manage better than the scoreboard suggests.

That is what made the result feel larger than a routine early-round escape. Wong, 34 and ranked No. 54 for Hong Kong, China, showed the kind of survival instinct that matters when Grand Smash matches are compressed by tiny margins and fast-changing pressure. Groth, 33 and ranked No. 42 in Week 26 of 2026, came in as a left-hand attack shakehand player with a strong international résumé of his own, including a doubles title at the 2016 European Championships and a men’s singles runner-up finish at the 2019 European Games. He had also been running into elite opposition recently, with losses to Oikawa Mizuki, Lim Jonghoon, Wang Chuqin and Truls Moregard in his latest events.

United States Smash 2026 is being staged from June 26 to July 5 with USD 1,550,000 in prize money, and the men’s draw is stacked with top names including Wang Chuqin, Truls Moregard, Tomokazu Harimoto, Felix Lebrun, Lin Shidong, Hugo Calderano, Lin Yun-Ju and Sora Matsushima. That depth explains why each round can feel like a pressure test rather than a formality. Wong’s reward is a meeting with Lebrun, the world No. 4 and Europe’s highest-ranked player, which raises the stakes immediately and gives the Hong Kong veteran a far sterner examination of whether this comeback was the start of a deep run or merely the survival act that kept him in the event.