Liam Pitchford is through to the knockout stages of the Hungarian Open in Budapest, but Sam Walker and Helshan Weerasinghe have been eliminated.

Pitchford started with a routine 4-0 victory over Gleb Shamruk of Belarus and followed up by defeating Kazeem Makanjuola of Nigeria 4-1.

He is next in action in the second preliminary round this afternoon, when he will play the winner of the tie between Jon Persson (SWE) and Aliaksandr Khanin (BLR) at 3.20pm UK time.

Walker was taken to five by Serbia’s Aleksa Gacev and then surprisingly beaten 4-2 by world No 273 Nandor Ecseki of the host nation.

Weerasinghe was edged out of his first match by Irvin Bertrand of France, going down 12-10 in the deciding seventh after leading 3-2 in sets. He was then beaten 4-1 by Lin Gaoyuan of China, most recently ranked at No 62 in the world.