The Swedish team wrote history today after claiming their tenth World Cup title in an incredible match against Great Britain. Before heading into the tournament, Anna-Klara Ahlmer mentioned that Sweden did not know if they were going to make it into the semi-finals. It’s safe to say they did a lot more than that.
Luke Griffiths started strong in table tennis taking it 11-5 against René Lindberg, before Anna-Klara put Sweden ahead taking table tennis 11-4 against Holly Ranson. Fagerström/Tay won 11-7 against Davidson/Stahl and Hedlund won 11-5 against Ritter.
A lead for Sweden going into badminton, which was quite even overall. Luke Griffiths took it 11-4 against Lindberg, whilst Ahlmer suprised herself beating Ranson, a strong badminton player, 11-4. Fagerström/Tay took badminton 11-4 but Ritter levelled the score taking badminton also with 11-4 for Great Britain.
GB were the slight favourites to win the squash match, with Griffiths taking it 11-4 and Davidson/Stahl 11-6. Jonny Ritter took an absolute thriller against Hedlund, with both players having match ball, but he managed to stay composed and take the win 15-13. Ahlmer took the only squash win for Sweden beating Ranson 11-3.
Great Britain had a tough task going into tennis, and it slowly started to look like Sweden was going to win the match. Lindberg produced some strong tennis beating Griffiths 11-8, and Ahlmer strengthened Sweden’s lead by taking tennis 11-2 with a dominant performance. This meant that Sweden only needed 5 more points to win. Davidson/Stahl started strong, creating a quick lead making it tough for the Swedes. A few errors from the Swedish pair, but they started to get back into it. A few good rallies, 4-5, match point, Sweden won the rally and crowned themselves World Cup Champion for the tenth time! The overall score was +15 (68-53)
After the match, Ahlmer said: “Yesterday was great, we were like we believe in this, we can actually do this. When it came to it we knew we needed to step up and play our best and we did. We had a training camp two weeks ago where we trained together, created a good team spirit and gave each other tips. We have a really good team spirit.”
Germany defeated Denmark for bronze, taking the match +20 (76-56).
