World Tour finals double a big step for Liam Pitchford

Although both ended in defeat to opponents from the all-powerful Chinese camp, Pitchford can take huge confidence from a string of eye-catching performances, including beating the world number one in the semi-finals.

Seeded 15th for one of the strongest events on the calendar, world number 22 Pitchford started in the last 32 with a 4-2 win over Alvaro Robles, of Spain, and then overcame world No 27 Vladimir Samsonov, of Belarus, by the same margin.

His quarter-final against Chuang Chih-Yuan, of Chinese Taipei, showed Pitchford at his best as he dismissed the world No 37 – a former long-standing top 10 player – 4-0 (14-12, 11-8, 11-5, 11-7).

That set up a semi-final against Xu Xin, against whom Pitchford had never won a set. All that changed in spectacular fashion as the Chesterfield athlete won 4-2 (3-11, 11-7, 11-9, 6-11, 15-13, 11-9) with a performance of focus and intelligence as Xu struggled to find attacking openings against Pitchford’s precise short game.

The final was a high-quality affair against recent world number one Fan Zhendong, who had to pull out his top form to see off Pitchford 4-2 (11-9, 11-7, 8-11, 11-4, 6-11, 11-7).

Pitchford said: “It’s a bit mixed emotions. It’s always disappointing to lose a final, but overall it’s been a massively positive tournament. It’s a massive step and the next step is to win one.

“I had my chances in the final and maybe on another day it could have gone my way, but I made him play his best and pushed him to the limit.

“Especially against the Chinese, you’ve got to mix up the play and I think I did that really well.

“The fifth set was one of the best sets I’ve played and it was probably the same for him. That’s what you’ve got to do against these players and that’s the level I want to be at all the time.”

A day earlier, unseeded Pitchford and Paul Drinkhall became the first English pair to reach an ITTF World Tour doubles final, which they did as an unseeded pair.

Having come back from 2-0 down to defeat Serbia’s Marko Jevtovic & Zsolt Peto 3-2 (10-12, 7-11, 11-9, 11-8, 11-5) in the preliminary round, they saw off Mohammed Abdulwahhab & Ahmad Khalil Al-Mohannadi of the host nation 3-0 in the last 16, following up with a 3-1 (11-7, 11-7, 9-11, 11-5) defeat of Lam Siu Hang & Ng Pak Nam of Hong Kong in the quarter-finals.

It was another pair from Hong Kong in the semis, second seeds Ho Kwan Kit & Wong Chun Ting, and the English pair withstood a comeback to seal a 3-2 (11-7, 12-10, 4-11, 9-11, 11-7) victory which made them the first English pair to reach a doubles final since the World Tour began in 1996.

Standing in their way were Xu Xin & Ma Long of China, the No 1 pair in the world and No 1 and No 3 respectively in the singles rankings.

Drinkhall and Pitchford lost the first 11-8 but hit back by the same margin, but the Chinese pair stepped on the gas to win the next 11-1, and they completed a 3-1 victory by winning five points in a row from 6-6 in the next set.

Pitchford said: “We hadn’t played together for a while but I think we proved we’re the best pair together and now we’ll play a few more tournaments together and hopefully kick on.”