by Simon Daish
Play gets underway from 10.00am (local time) with quarter-finals action from the Women’s Championship Division.
First up is the tie at the summit of the draw as top seeds China meet the team seeded six positions below them, Austria. Sofia Polcanova was very much the star in Austria’s previous match, claiming a brace against European rivals Germany but Polcanova and her fellow compatriots will need to reach a whole new level in the last eight if they are to have any chance of putting a dent in China’s title ambitions.
Scheduled to take place at the same time is a huge encounter in the opposite half of the draw as Korea Republic faces DPR Korea: The most recent match between the two teams came at last year’s Asian Championships in Wuxi where Korea Republic earned a comfortable 3-0 victory, but DPR Korea enters the tie off the back of a big win against Russia and will be looking to equal their semi-finals finish achieved at the 2016 World Team Championships.
Ukraine has surely been the surprise team of the Women’s Championship Division so far and will attempt to derail Japan’s campaign when the two sides meet at 13.00pm before Hong Kong and Romania, seeded fourth and sixth respectively, go head-to-head at 16.00pm.
There are four fixtures to be played in the Men’s Championship Division on day five in Halmstad as eight teams go head-to-head in the race for the quarter-finals.
Seeded third for the event but Japan could be set for a tough ride on day five with Hong Kong providing the opposition at 13.00pm. The two sides met earlier this year at the 2018 ITTF Team World Cup, a tie which Japan narrowly edged thanks to deciding match win from Tomokazu Harimoto but can Wong Chun Ting’s Hong Kong reverse the outcome this time around?
Sweden then features at 16.00pm looking to take advantage of the home crowd as the hosts search for a major upset against Chinese Taipei. Rounding off the action, Austria and Portugal meet face-to-face at 19.00pm in a repeat of the 2015 European Championships final while Group B runners up Brazil takes on surprise qualifiers Croatia.
Watch the action unfold live from Halmstad with itTV.
