The Swedish Olympic silver medalist in team events failed to resist Tomokazu Harimoto. Källberg lost with 2–3 in sets, 9–11, 11–9, 2–11, 11–4, 12–14, in the World Championship tournament in Montpellier.
It looked for a while as if Harimoto would win clearly. The Japanese took the third set with a whole 11–2 for a 2–1 lead in sets, but Källberg responded in the fourth by winning with clear 11–4.
In the decisive fifth set, Harimoto took a grip directly and took four straight points, but Källberg responded with five straight won points. Källberg then went up to a lead with 10–6 and four match balls, but the Japanese saved all of them to finally win the match via 14–12 in the deciding set.
However, the Swedish hope is not yet extinguished in the tournament.
Later in the evening (at 20.20) Truls Möregårdh will play his quarterfinal. He will face tough opposition in the form of Frenchman Alexis Lebrun.
Lebrun comes directly from a European Championship where he took home the gold in singles, where he also crushed Möregårdh in the semifinal.
Before the match, Olympic hero Möregårdh believed he would not get much support from the audience in Montpellier, as it is Lebrun's hometown.
I'll probably have some against me in the next match, but it will be fun anyway, said Möregårdh after beating Slovenian Jorgic in the earlier round of the tournament.
The winner of the tournament takes home 300,000 kronor in first prize.
