David McBeath’s brilliant run at the Swedish Open was ended by world No 54 Wang Yang today – but Liam Pitchford marched on into the last 16.
McBeath, who last appeared on the ranking list at No 308 in September, had notched the biggest win of his career by defeating world No 24 Maharu Yoshimura -the seventh seed in Stockholm – in six sets in the last 64.
That followed on from a victory over world No 105 Eonrae Cho in the group stage, making it the best World Tour performance of the Hampshire player’s career.
But he could not quite repeat that feat against 21st seed Wang Yang of Slovakia, though he did twice come from a set down to level before succumbing 4-2.
McBeath has only been back in full training for a couple of months after a shoulder injury and he admitted:
“It’s been a bit of a surprise, I’ve been out injured for the last eight or nine months. It’s definitely my best performance.
“I’ve played good tactics, especially this morning (against Yoshimura) and I received well. I had a good match and he dropped his level at the end and I took advantage of that. I got an early lead in the sixth set, 5-0 up I think, and held on from there. I think he got a bit nervous.
“Beating Cho was one of my best wins as well. That was a closer match, I was down 3-2 but I changed my tactics a bit and kept that going and started to get a few more easier balls.”
Pitchford, the 20th seed, had a good victory over world No 31 Hugo Calderano of Brazil, seeded 12th. He saw his opponent battle back from 2-0 down to level, but was able to ‘reset’ himself and take the next two.
That set up a last-16 meeting with Jin Ueda of Japan, last ranked at 114 in October but who beat sixth seed Simon Gauzy in the last 64. The match is at noon UK time on Saturday.
Pitchford earlier saw off world No 124 Harald Andersson of the host nation in six sets.
Sam Walker could not get the better of Portugal’s world No 34 and 18th seed Joao Monteiro in the last 64, going down 4-2 though matching his opponent for large parts of the match.