TABLE TENNIS
A False Dawn for Sweden
Expectations of a Swedish resurgence seem premature
The first of the only five male players in the history of table tennis to achieve a career Grand Slam — winning the World Championships, the World Cup, and the Olympic gold medal in the men’s singles category — is not a Chinese.
In fact, to date, he remains the only non-Chinese member in that elite club.
Surprised? Don’t be.
For Jan-Ove Waldner has won everything that he could have won. In a career spanning almost three decades, the Stockholm-born not only left an indelible impact on the sport but is arguably the greatest. There isn’t an iota of doubt as regards the fact that any list of the top men’s singles players of all time will feature the Swede among the top three.
If Waldner marked the absolute peak of Swedish table tennis there were many other players who contributed significantly to making Sweden a major force in the sport, albeit only in the various men’s categories.
The first phase began in the 1960s and peaked in the early 1970s. Players like Hans Alsér, Kjell Johansson, and Stellan Bengtsson won a clutch of medals at the World Championships, with the latter winning the men’s singles title in Nagoya (Japan) in 1971.
In the 1973 edition of the flagship tournament in Sarajevo (present-day Bosnia) Johansson not only reached the final of the men’s singles category but also joined forces with Bengtsson to lead Sweden to a maiden team (Swaythling Cup) title.
Mikael Appelgren won the World Cup in 1983, and in 1988 — when table tennis made its debut as an Olympic sport in Seoul (South Korea) — Erik Lindh’s bronze made him the first non-Asian to win a singles medal at the quadrennial extravaganza.
Waldner’s contemporary Jörgen Persson also had a long and illustrious career, winning among other things the World Championships and the World Cup — both in 1991. The Halmstad-born also won the Europe Top-12 (European Top-16 since 2015) in 1992.
These players combined to help Sweden to three successive world team finals between 1983 and 1987, finishing second only to China in the flagship competition.
The quartet was joined by Peter Karlsson for the 1989 World Championships in Dortmund (Germany), and that year witnessed Sweden upset the mighty Chinese to win Swaythling Cup for a second time.
The Swedish team would win the next two editions of the world team title, and reclaim the title again in 2000, again at the expense of China. In fact, the Swedes weren’t the only ones to challenge the Chinese for two decades but also to get the better of them on multiple occasions.
To say that Sweden was the most dominant nation in Europe in that period would be akin to stating the obvious. It was a surprise to see anyone other than a Swede lifting the men’s titles in that period.
Besides, winning that fifth Swaythling Cup title in the year 2000 also witnessed other notable Swedish successes. Waldner, almost 35 then, claimed silver at the Sydney Olympics — narrowly losing the final against China’s Kong Linghui.
Karlsson, a five-time world champion — having also won the world doubles title in the company of Thomas von Scheele at Chiba in 1991 — captured his biggest singles title at the European Championships in Bremen (Germany).
That’s that. For a major part of the next two decades, Sweden’s decline as a table tennis powerhouse became all the more apparent. The nation not only went completely out of the picture on a global stage but also ceded significant ground (mainly to Germany) on the European stage.
In an interaction with this writer a few summers back Karlsson had made a very practical assessment of Sweden’s decline.
“I think what actually went wrong with table tennis in Sweden is that the old generation stayed for a long period and there was no new lot of players to replace it,” Karlsson had explained, adding,
“Normally you have a natural switch, where a young generation comes and takes over from the older one. But in Sweden, the development of this young generation stopped as the older players continued for a long time.
“This created a gap. The history and knowledge that should have been transferred from one generation to the other, wasn’t actually transferred. And when the older lot of players eventually stopped playing, the new generation of players had to start from scratch.”
In the last two decades even as China’s total domination on the global stage has ensured ennui, the likes of Timo Boll and Dimitrij Ovtcharov have helped Germany rule the roost in Europe. However, unlike the Swedes the Germans couldn’t wrest the Swaythling Cup from the Chinese even once, finishing second best on as many as five occasions.
That being said, a 41-year-old Boll entered the just concluded 2022 European Championship as the defending champion says a lot about the shift in the balance of power as far as European table tennis is concerned.
The fact that Dang Qiu — the person ending Boll’s defense is also a German, one who went on to win the title at the Rudi-Sedlmayer-Halle in Munich, indicates it will take some effort by another to change the status quo in Europe.
There’s renewed hope for Sweden though. If recent results as also the present lot of players is taken into consideration, the Swedish team may look the best bet to take over from the Germans and lead the European challenge against the mighty Asians led by China. However, as things stand that notion is far from reality.
The initial glimpses of a Swedish revival were on witness when the country hosted the World Team Championships in 2018. A team comprising of Anton Källberg, Kristian Karlsson and Truls Möregårdh won the bronze medal in the Halmstad Arena — Sweden’s first since 2001.
In the 2019 World Table Tennis Championships in Budapest (Hungary), Mattias Falck went all the way to the final, before losing to the defending champion, China’s Ma Long.
Last year when Houston (Texas) hosted the same tournament it was Möregårdh who secured the silver, losing to China’s Fan Zhendong in the final. However, Sweden did leave American soil with a gold medal.
Falck combined with Kristian Karlson to win the men’s doubles title, marking Sweden’s first gold medal in the category in three decades. The duo won the doubles gold again, as well as bronze medals in the singles, in Munich last week even as Sweden picked up a total of four medals in these European Championships.
The above results may look impressive in totality, especially considering the struggles of Sweden for a major part of the last two decades. However, beyond the initial excitement they also narrate stories of individual failures to make most of those opportunities count, the lack of a killer instinct, the inability to land that final blow, and the absence of a crucial parameter — a certain consistency especially when it comes to the singles category.
Kristian Karlsson is 31. Mattias Falck is younger to him by a month. That being said age is not a major factor in table tennis. Both Waldner and Persson played consistently well into their 40s. Boll, as previously mentioned, is 41, and remains one of the best players. Ovtcharov is 34. Vladimir Samsonov of Belarus, another European legend, announced his retirement at the ripe young age of 45.
While age may not matter, consistency does, and consistency of results will substantiate any discussion about a Swedish resurgence. Besides, one player is not enough to bring back a nation’s glory days. It has to be a combination of efforts and big results from multiple players. At this point in time, it is simply not there.
Falck followed his silver medal feat in Budapest with an exit at the first hurdle in Europe. Källberg, who also won bronze in the doubles category in Munich, is yet to achieve his full potential.
At just 20 Möregårdh looks like Sweden’s best bet. He received the top billing in Munich, albeit failed to justify his favorite’s status. It is a fact that he has been the most consistent of the lot but it is also true that the consistency is yet to translate into something tangible (read gold medal).
Three months after losing the gold medal match to Zhendong in the World Championships in Houston, Möregårdh fell short in the decider again — Darko Jorgić of Slovenia getting the better of him in the Europe Top 16 final in Montreux (Switzerland) this February.
Peter Karlsson was the last Swede in the Europe Top 16 Cup final, losing to Samsonov in the 2001 final in Wels, Austria. The last Swede to win the prestigious competition was Waldner back in 1996.
Likewise, the last Swede to win the singles title at the European Table Tennis Championships singles title was also Karlsson (2000). Sweden is yet to add to its record 14 European Team Championships, the last of which was won back in 2002.
Expectations of a Swedish resurgence will only seem justified if the country reclaims its success first in Europe, and then on a global stage, with a string of consistent results rather than major titles.
An odd success, or a few runs late into the tournament, may be exciting in the short run but will be deemed as disappointments in the long run. For a national team with as rich a history in table tennis as the Swedes, only a significant haul of gold medals will indicate the coming of age of another golden generation.
Till the same is attained any talk of Swedish resurgence or revival is only a false dawn.
