Chesterfield's Liam Pitchford enjoys a winning return

Liam Pitchford picked up where he left off as international table tennis resumed after an eight-month break with the ITTF Men’s World Cup in China.

By Paul Stimpson

Published 14th Nov 2020, 07:29 GMT

Liam Pitchford progressed out of the group stage.

The world No 15 from Chesterfield reached the final of the Qatar Open in March – the last event before the pandemic restrictions.

And he continued that form by winning his two matches today to top his group and go through to the knockout stage of the tournament in Weihai.

Seeded 10th, he began with a 4-1 (9-11, 11-6, 11-8, 13-11, 13-11) victory over world No 30 Chuang Chih-Yuan of Chinese Taipei and followed up by defeating America’s world No 27 Kanak Jha 4-3 (7-11, 11-4, 13-15, 11-5, 11-5, 10-12, 11-4).

He next faces German’s Dimitrij Ovtcharov, the seventh seed, in the last 16 at 3am UK time on Saturday.

It is Pitchford’s first appearance at the event since 2012, when he had a host nation slot and he said: “To get two wins out of two, playing some good table tennis, I’m very, very happy.”

Chesterfield China