England now know their opponents for Stage 1a of the ITTF World Team Table Tennis Championships Finals – and will need a vibrant home crowd behind them as they take on some of the most illustrious teams in the world!

Click below to get your tickets!

---

We’ve scoured the archives to see how England have got on against these same opponents at previous World Championships – and the results throw up plenty of interesting omens!

World Championships statistics courtesy of Matt Solt.

If England need any extra inspiration to get positive results from their Stage 1a matches at London 2026, a flick through the archives reveals plenty of success against their opponents at previous World Championships.

Admittedly, recent victories have been thin on the ground, but how about this for the ultimate omen – England men beat BOTH China and Sweden on their way to becoming world champions in 1953.

Their meeting with China in the group stage in Bucharest was the first time the nations had met at the Worlds, and it was a 5-0 win for England with legendary trio Johnny Leach, Richard Bergmann and Aubrey Simons on duty.

The same threesome had earlier inflicted a 5-0 defeat on Sweden and went on to lift the coveted Swaythling Cup for the first and only time, beating Hungary 5-3 in the final.

Three years later at the 1956 edition in Tokyo, England beat China again, this time 5-2 and with Bergmann, Leach and Brian Kennedy on duty.

Since then, the nations have met on six further occasions, with China winning every time – in 1975, 1977 (in Birmingham), 1981, 1987, 1993 and 1995.

The meeting at OVO Arena Wembley on 2 May will be the first between the nations this century – though they did meet in London at the 2018 Team World Cup, a 3-0 win for China.

England and Sweden are no strangers to World Championships meetings, having faced each other on no fewer than 20 occasions.

The first was way back in 1928 at the second ever World Championships, when England won 5-0 on Swedish soil in Stockholm.

They met as recently as 2022 in Chengdu, a 3-1 victory in the group stage for Sweden.

Adding up those and every result in between, both sides have their share of victories, with Sweden leading 12-8 overall.

England last won in 1981 and Sweden have won all seven since then, including in the semi-finals in 1983, when England had to settle for a bronze medal. The squad was Des Douglas, John Hilton, Carl Prean, Graham Sandley and Douggie Johnson.

They also met in the group stage in Kuala Lumpur in 2016 – England lost the match but went on to reach the semi-finals as Liam Pitchford, Paul Drinkhall and Sam Walker, plus coach Alan Cooke, won that brilliant bronze which remains England’s most recent World Championships medal.

The teams also met in the quarter-finals in 2018 as the same England trio tried to repeat that feat. It was not to be as Sweden won 3-0 in home soil in Halmstad.

Matches against South Korea have been fewer in number and, in the six matches played, the Koreans hold a 4-2 advantage – England winning in 1956 and 1981 but losing in 1971, 1985 (the 9-10 positional play-off), 1991 and 1993. Again, the meeting at Wembley will be the first time this century the nations will have met.

There are some good omens on the women’s side as well, not last from the last time Wembley hosted the World Championships, in 1954.

Then, the England team defeated both Japan and France – and what a win it was against Japan in the second stage, when twins Diane and Rosalind Rowe combined to achieve a 3-2 scoreline in England’s favour.

England were the only team to beat Japan, who went on to lift the Corbillon Cup – there was a three-way countback between the three group winners – Japan, England and Hungary. England took bronze, having lost 3-1 to Hungary, while Japan defeated Hungary 3-1.

Earlier, in the group stage, England had beaten France 3-0 on their way to winning all six matches.

That meeting with Japan was one of four in the 1950s, with Japan winning in 1952 and 1955 and England taking the honours in 1954 and 1956.

Those are England’s only two victories in 13 meetings, with Japan having won in 1961, 1965, 1967, 1973, 1975, 1981, 1983, 1991 and, most recently, in 1995. A first meeting this century beckons at OVO Arena Wembley on 2 May.

The same can be said of England versus Germany, a fixture which has been played 14 times at the Worlds, but not since 1995. The current tally stands at seven victories for each nation.

Germany won the first four meetings in four successive years starting in 1934, but England then won four fixtures in a row in 1951, 1953, 1955 and (against East Germany) in 1959.

Since then, the honours have been shared as West Germany beat England in 1963 and 1975 and England beating East Germany in 1967 and West Germany in 1971 (sealing seventh place) and again in 1979. The most recent meeting was won by the reunited Germany in 1995.

England’s best record against any of their six opponents in Stage 1a is the women’s record against France. They have met 16 times, with England coming out on top in no fewer than 12 of those fixtures.

England won the first meeting at the 1934 Worlds – the first time the Women’s Team event was played, at the eighth World Championships in Paris (actually held in December 1933).

France took the next match, in 1935, but England then went on a run of eight successive victories – in 1936, 1937, 1947, 1949, 1954 at Wembley, 1973, 1981 and 1985.

France broke the spell in 1991 in the round of 16, but England won twice at the Championships of 1993 – in the group stage and again in the play-offs for positions 13-16. France then won two of their own in positional play-offs in 1997 (17th-20th) and 2000 (25th-28th).

England won the most recent meeting at the 2010 Championships in a crunch fixture in which the winners would stay in the Championship Division. It was 3-2 to England as Kelly Sibley took the crucial fifth match against Alice Abbat. Karina Le Fevre and Katie Parker were the other team members to consign France to relegation to the Challenge Division.

Can England add some more W’s to these statistics at OVO Arena Wembley? We’ll find out in just a few weeks’ time!