Kanak Jha won both of his matches, prevailing in a five-game thriller to seal the U.S. men’s 3-2 win over Sweden to advance to the Team World Cup quarterfinals Thursday in Tokyo. Zhang Kai won one of his singles matches to provide the other point.
The men’s run ended later in the day with a 3-0 defeat to China.
The U.S. women also advanced to a quarterfinal matchup with China by beating Austria 3-1, clinching the match without even putting star Lily Zhang, who reached the individual World Cup semifinals last month, to the floor for what would’ve been the decisive singles showdown. Zhang and Yue Wu won their doubles match, and Wu and Amy Wang each won a single match to seal the victory.
Only four countries reached the quarterfinals in both the men’s and women’s competition — the U.S., China, Japan and South Korea.
A live stream is available on the ITTF site.
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