Chesterfield's Liam Pitchford enjoys a winning return
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.
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Hide AdSeeded 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.”