Great Britain’s dreams of qualifying a women’s team for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics were ended by a ruthless Spanish display at the qualifying tournament in Portugal today.
Ranked 11 places below their 14th-ranked opponents, it was always going to be a tough task for Great Britain’s trio of Tin-Tin Ho, Charlotte Carey and Maria Tsaptsinos. All three GB players are ranked below their opposite numbers, while Ho and Tsaptsinos played in the England side beaten 3-0 by Spain in the European Championships second stage match at BATTS last year.
Nevertheless, they made the ideal start as Carey & Tsaptsinos took the first game of the opening doubles 11-7 against Galia Dvorak & Sofia-Xuan Zhang – but that was as good as it got for GB as the Spanish got to grips with the occasion and won the next nine games.
GB showed some fight, saving three match points before losing the doubles 3-1, while Ho (WR 102) led the first game 9-8 against Maria Xiao (WR 69) before her opponent took the next three and went on to shut the door on Ho, who did save a match point in the third.
Carey (WR 159) also saved match points – two of them against Dvorak (WR 93) – but was never let into the match by her opponent, who saw Spain through to the final play-off match against Austria, in which the winner will book a place in Tokyo.
Great Britain men, seeded seventh, will expect better fortunes when they take on 24th-ranked Argentina at 7pm on Thursday.
Watch the matches (registration required)
Carey & Tsaptsinos v Dvorak & Zhang
Ho v Xiao
Carey v Dvorak
Results
Spain 3 Great Britain 0
Galia Dvorak & Sofia-Xuan Zhang bt Charlotte Carey & Maria Tsaptsinos 3-1 (7-11, 11-7, 11-7, 11-8)
Maria Xiao bt Tin-Tin Ho 3-0 (11-9, 11-3, 11-8)
Dvorak bt Carey 3-0 (11-5, 11-5, 11-6)