Men's teams
Table tennis titan Ma Long has finally made his long-awaited return to the Olympic table.
The five-time Olympic gold medalist opened his 2024 Games campaign in a men's team match paired with recent mixed doubles gold medalist, Wang Chuqin. Ma and Wang served India's Harmeet Desai and Manav Vikash Thakkar a defeat in three straight games. Wang went on to win his singles match, and newly crowned men's champion Fan Zhendong got the final win for the Chinese men's team to clinch its spot in the quarterfinals.
Fifth seeded South Korea only lost one game to No. 11 seed Croatia. The South Korean team will face the ultimate gauntlet in the quarterfinals when they will take on top team China.
Tokyo Olympic Games bronze medal team Japan got the better of Chinese Taipei, 3-1. Harimoto Tomokazu partnered with teammate Togami Shunsuke to clinch the teams first match, but dropped his singles match against Cheng-Jui Kao, 2-3, pushing the Japanese team to play a fourth match to ensure victory. Harimoto played a fourth and final match, where he bested Kao to ensure victory.
Concluding men's play for the day, Sweden decidedly triumphed over Germany, 3-0. In the country's last match, Swede Anton Kallberg beat Germany's Timo Boll, 3-1, to end the match and also Boll's career.
In May, Boll announced he would retire after his Paris Olympic run. Over the course of his 25 years playing competitive table tennis, Boll competed in seven Olympics, making him only the sixth table tennis player to compete at seven Games. He made his Olympic debut at the Sydney Games in 2000, and since then, has led his team to win a medal at each subsequent games. Germany's loss ended that medal streak.
“I knew before the match that it could be like that and, of course, it makes me very sad," Kallberg said of eliminating Boll and Team Germany from the tournament. "We are very good friends. We know each other. It's been a long time playing together.
“He obviously meant a lot to table tennis in the whole world, Germany and in Europe. He's the biggest star since how many years? So we're losing a legend, but he's not going to be forgotten anytime soon."
Women's teams
The United States women's team suffered a tightly-contested loss to Germany. The Americans were down two matches to Germany, before Amy Wang and Lily Zhang notched back-to-back wins to level the match count. Rachel Sung couldn't keep up the momentum, and lost to Annett Kaufmann, 3-1.
The women's Chinese Taipei team overwhelmed the last seeded team, only dropping two matches on the way to victory.
North Korea was the first women's team to advance to the semifinals, after they dismantled Sweden, 3-0.
The Tokyo Games silver medalists were merciless in steam-rolling past the Thailand women's team.
“We were so cautious of the Thailand team, because they beat France in the last round," Japan's Miu Hirano said after the match.
"So we thought, we have to win. We cannot fear losing.”