This concerns POI 5.1.0 When creating a cell from XWPFTableRow with createCell(), the created row contains an empty paragraph.
Please check - bug #65292(https://bz.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=65292) - bug #64838(https://bz.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=64838) Because table cell should include at least one block-level element.