Tin-Tin Ho and Paul Drinkhall won their opening matches at the German Open in Bremen, but Sam Walker went out to a Chinese opponent.

Women’s No 1 Ho was first on court and had few alarms again Kazakhstan’s Anastassiya Lavrova, ranked 96 places below her at 196, as she won in five. Her opponent in the next preliminary round is France’s Yuan Jia Nan (WR302) on Wednesday morning.

Drinkhall also needed five against Serbia’s Aleksandar Karakasevic (WR134), taking a 3-0 lead but being edged out 12-10 in the fourth before taking his chance in the next. He has a tough task on paper against world No 32 Tomislav Pucar of Croatia in Wednesday’s third preliminary round.

Walker was drawn against China’s Yu Ziyang in his first match and saw his opponent, ranked No 124, win four relatively close games to move into the next round.

Liam Pitchford is the 16th seed and therefore straight into the main draw, which begins on Thursday. He and Drinkhall are in doubles action on Wednesday, against Jakob Dyjas (POL) & Cedric Nuytinck (BEL) at 3.25pm UK time.

Results

Men’s singles
Preliminary Round 2
Paul Drinkhall bt Aleksandar Karakasevic (SRB) 4-1 (11-7, 11-4, 11-5, 10-12, 11-9)
Yu Ziyang (CHN) bt Sam Walker 4-0 (11-8, 11-7, 11-7, 11-9)

Women’s Singles
Preliminary Round 2
Tin-Tin Ho bt Anastassiya Lavrova (KAZ) 4-1 (11-8, 11-8, 9-11, 11-5, 11-2)