Paisley’s Martin Perry teamed up with Thomas Rau from Germany to take gold in the men’s class 6 team event at the PTT China Open in Hangzhou on Sunday.
Fliss Pickard and her Korean team partner Seongok Kim took silver in women’s class 6-7 and Jack Hunter-Spivey combined with Kentaro Doi and Toru Nakamoto from Japan to take bronze in men’s class 5.
Welshman Joshua Stacey teamed up with Igor Misztal from Poland to take silver in the men’s class 9-10 team event on the final day of the event today.
Click here to read the report from the individual events
Perry and Rau beat Kazuki Shichino and Junki Itai from Japan 2-0 and followed that with a 2-0 win against the Egyptian team of Ibrahim Hamadtou and Mahmoud Abdelmagid Bashir. Their final match in the round-robin event was against the Korean/Russian team of world No 5 Hong Kyu Park, Sungil Kim and Mars Gabdullin and they clinched the gold with a 2-0 win.
“I feel that the tournament overall has been a hard one to judge,” said Perry. “I had a very strong group in the singles and was obviously disappointed coming all this way to not even progress from my group.
“The team event was good. I feel Thomas and I had a good relationship; we had some good banter and I really enjoyed playing together. We were both a bit disappointed that China pulled out as of course it would have been great for us to have a chance of beating them.
“Thomas had a very good singles tournament and was happy to sit back and believe in me for each match playing as number one. We played very good doubles and I was able to go and win the singles. I had some tricky matches and found a level I was happy with.
“It’s not the best way for me to end my 2019 but I’m of course happy to be coming home with a team gold medal. I think the main thing to take home from China is to focus on my trajectory and not my current standing. I feel I’ve developed a lot this year so I’m happy with that.”
Pickard and the class 7 world and Paralympic bronze medallist Kim lost 2-0 to Chiu Kan Shan and Wong Yue Ching from Hong Kong and then beat the Macau team of U Choi Hong, Lam Oi Man and Chang Mei Yu 2-0. They secured the silver with a 2-0 win against the Egypt/Iraq combination of African champion Hanna Hammad, Asian championships silver medallist Najlah Al Dayyeni and Asian Para Games medallist Zainab Farttoosi.
Despite taking team silver and singles bronze, Pickard was not happy with her performance here.
“I think it has been a poor tournament for me,” she said, “and I’m very disappointed to end the year with these results.”
Hunter-Spivey and his Japanese team mates lost their opening group match 2-0 to the Asian champions from Indonesia, Tatok Hardiyanto and Agus Sutanto. They progressed to the semi-finals after a 2-0 win against the Macau team of Ip Chi Keong and Chao long Fok and were beaten 2-0 by the Chinese team of Paralympic champion Cao Ningning, 2017 Asian champion Zhan Deshun and 17 year old Liu Fu.
In men’s class 9-10 Joshua Stacey teamed up with class 10 world and European team gold medallist Igor Misztal from Poland and they were drawn in the same group as Kim Daybell and Ashley Facey Thompson.
After beating Wong Chi Yin and Lam Ka Wai from Hong Kong 2-0 Stacey and Misztal beat Daybell and Facey Thompson 2-0 and topped the group with a 2-0 win against the China2 team of class 9 Asian champion Zhao Yi Qing and Asian team gold medallist Han Yajie. They won their semi-final against world No 3 Koyo Iwabuchi and Nariaki Kakita from Japan 2-0.
They took on the China1 team of class 10 world No 3 Lian Hao, Mao Shubo and Kong Weijie in the final. After losing a very close doubles 3-2 Stacey levelled the tie with a 3-0 win against the class 10 Asian Championships medallist Mao but Lian secured the gold for China with a 3-1 win against Misztal in the deciding singles.
“Playing with Igor was very different to playing with Ash,” said Stacey, “but I felt that we worked well together from the start; we trusted in each other’s games and overall the doubles was a positive.
“Playing against Ash and Kim was a really strange experience considering I’ve played in a team with them since I first started playing Para table tennis but I had to try and focus on what I needed to do and apply myself as best as possible to give Igor and me the best chance of winning.”
Daybell and Facey Thompson were 2-0 winners against Hong Kong but did not progress after a 2-0 loss to China2.
In women’s class 4-5 Megan Shackleton and Joyce De Oliveira from Brazil won their opening match against Wassana Sringam and Panwas Sringam from Thailand and then lost a close match to the Korean team of Young A Jung, Oejeong Kang and Mi Kyoung Shin 2-1.
They lost 2-0 to the powerful China1 team of class 5 world No 1 Zhang Bian, class 4 world No 2 Zhou Ying and class 5 world No 2 Pan Jiamin. Defeat to China2 in their final round-robin match left then in fourth place.
In men’s class 8 Billy Shilton and Arufuahirokazu Tateishi and Takumi Shukunobe from Japan lost 2-1 to Phisit Wangphonphathanasiri and Komkrit Charitsat from Thailand, 2-0 to the Chinese team of two-time Paralympic champion Zhao Shuai, world No 6 Ye Chao Qun and Asian champion Peng Weinan and 2-1 to the combination of Polish world and Paralympic team gold medallists Piotr Grudzien and Marcin Skrzynecki and the Italian Samuel de Chiara. They won their final match against Vietnam 2-0 to finish fourth.