World champion Will Bayley and world No 1 Rob Davies head a squad of 12 members of the GB Para Table Tennis Team taking part in the Bayreuth Open in Germany this week.

The factor 40 tournament will see the first appearance in Europe this year of the powerful Chinese team, which includes eight current world champions.

Bayley will once again face strong competition from Maksym Nikolenko, the world No 1 who beat Bayley in a five-set final in Slovenia earlier this month, as well as his Ukrainian team-mate and current European champion Mykhaylo Popov and China’s Keli Liao.

Davies’s opposition includes reigning Paralympic champion Holger Nikelis from Germany and Ki-won Nam, the Korean who narrowly beat Davies in Slovakia two weeks ago.

The GB team also includes World silver medalist Sue Gilroy, London 2012 Paralympic medallists Jane Campbell, Sara Head and Aaron McKibbin, as well as 16-year-old Billy Shilton, who will once again partner Bayley in the men’s class 7 team event following their gold medal in Slovenia, when they beat world champions Spain in the final.

The full list of players representing GB in Germany is:

GB Performance Squad
Will Bayley – Class 7
Jane Campbell – Class 3
Rob Davies – Class 1
Ashley Facey Thompson – Class 9
Sue Gilroy – Class 4
Sara Head – Class 3
Jack Hunter-Spivey – Class 5
Aaron McKibbin – Class 8
Megan Shackleton – Class 4

GB Pathway Squad
Lawrence John – Class 10
Tom Matthews – Class 1
Billy Shilton – Class 7

Francesca Bullock
May 25, 2015