Liam Pitchford continued his excellent form to help England’s men fight to stay in the top tier of the European team competition at the INTERSPORT European Championships, Gdansk-Sopot, Poland.
Pitchford followed up his astounding win against World number 9 Vladimir Samsonov on Saturday with further high-ranked victories over Dmitrij Prokopcov (51) and Tomas Konecny (96) in the team’s 3-2 win against the Czech Republic.
Along with Paul Drinkhall’s win against Konecny, it now means the England side just need one more victory against France to guarantee their Championship Division status for next year.
The game looked tough to begin with as all three Czech players were ranked higher than the English players, but Pitchford and Drinkhall gave England the perfect start by winning both of their respective encounters.
Although Daniel Reed was subsequently defeated by Pavel Sirucek (128) and Drinkhall lost to Prokopcov, Pitchford was able to hold his nerve and pick up another huge victory at this tournament.
The women meanwhile remained on course to challenge for promotion from their division by comfortably beating Greece 3-1.
Joanna Parker once again won twice without dropping a set including an epic 19-17 set against Maria Christoforaki, while Kelly Sibley picked up the other victory.
A couple more wins will see the women promoted – the first of which comes against Portugal tomorrow, who will be a step up from the Greek side the girls played today.
Don’t forget to post your predictions for the England vs France game on our Facebook in order to win table tennis jewellery from Vinqui! The prize tomorrow is the Courage pendant.
Today’s winner was Carmencita Alexandrescu.
Results:
Men:
England 3-2 Czech Rep.
P Drinkhall bt T Konecny 3-2 (5-11, 11-7, 7-11, 12-10, 11-4)
L Pitchford bt D Prokopcov 3-1 (11-5, 8-11, 11-8, 11-8)
P Sirucek bt D Reed 3-1 (11-9, 11-8, 4-11, 11-6)
D Prokopcov bt P Drinkhall 3-0 (11-9, 12-10, 15-13)
L Pitchford bt Y Konecny 3-0 (11-6, 11-7, 11-8)
Women:
England 3-1 Greece
K Sibley bt M Christoforaki 3-2 (8-11, 11-6, 11-6, 7-11, 11-7)
J Parker bt F Exarchou 3-0 (11-5, 11-6, 11-2)
A Toliou bt E Bates 3-1 (11-6, 5-11, 11-8, 11-5)
J Parker bt M Christoforaki 3-0 (11-8, 19-17, 11-7)