As Chinese communities around the world – including in London – celebrate the Lunar New Year, excitement is also rising about the chance to watch the nation’s teams compete on the biggest stage at OVO Arena Wembley. 

China will be part of a massive Bank Holiday Weekend from 2-4 May, with a succession of scintillating match-ups that no die-hard sports fan will want to miss – with the seeding matches on the Saturday and Sunday and the first of the Round of 32 matches on the Monday. 

Click the link here or the image below to get your tickets to watch table tennis at its very best. 

In the global sporting landscape, there are few examples of one nation dominating the top step of the podium as China has in table tennis. 

Their men’s and women’s teams have each won the world team title on 23 occasions – and each has only failed to emerge victorious on one occasion this century. 

In the case of the men’s team, you have to go back to 2000 in Kuala Lumpur to find the last time a different nation conquered the world – and it was Sweden who took gold as their legendary trio of Jan-Ove Waldner, Jorgen Persson and Peter Karlsson each landed their fourth team title. 

It was the seventh time in nine editions of the World Championships that Sweden and China had met in the gold medal match, China winning four and Sweden two of their previous meetings. 

China and Sweden will rekindle their rivalry in Stage 1a, in the same group as England and Korea Republic, as the top seven seeds and host nation England play for seeding position in the Stage 2 knockouts. 

China’s women have been just as hard to beat – but Singapore did manage it at the 2010 Worlds in Moscow. 

Inspired by Feng Tianwei, who beat both Ding Ning and Liu Shiwen 3-2, Singapore became the most recent nation to win a world team title for the first time. 

The last time China won neither world team title was 1991, when Sweden beat Yugoslavia in the men’s final and a unified Korean team defeated China to win the women’s crown in one of the greatest of all World Championships stories. 

This time around, China women will start against Romania, Chinese Taipei and Korea Republic in Stage 1a – can anyone prevent them from taking the No 1 seeding position in Stage 2? 

What is England’s record against China? 

England men will be meeting China for the ninth time at a World Championships – and they won the first two meetings. 

In fact, England men beat China on their way to becoming world champions in 1953 in Bucharest – defeating them 5-0 in the group stage and going on to beat Hungary in the final with legendary trio Johnny Leach, Richard Bergmann and Aubrey Simons on duty. 

England won 5-2 against China at the 1956 Worlds in Tokyo, but China has won every meeting since then – in 1975, 1977 (in Birmingham), 1981, 1987, 1993 and 1995. 

They also met in London at the 2018 Team World Cup, a 3-0 win for China which was notable for Liam Pitchford’s brilliant match against Fan Zhendong – watch highlights below. 

England women are not facing China this time, although they have a similar record to the men’s team, having won the first two meetings in 1953 and 1956 and having lost all eight subsequent meetings, the last of them and the only one this century in the group stage in 2010. 

The other notable meetings came during the iconic Ping Pong Diplomacy tour of China in 1971 and the subsequent reciprocal tour of the UK by China later the same year.  

There was a total of five matches played between England and various China teams in Beijing, Shanghai and Tientsin, with England men (Tony Clayton, Trevor Taylor and Alan Hydes) winning three and losing two and England women (Jill Shirley (Parker) and Pauline Piddock having the same record. 

The tour of the UK included matches in Manchester, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Dublin, Birmingham and at Crystal Palace, with Great Britain, Scotland and Ireland teams involved as well as England. 

Read more about them here