Pitchford and Walker make fast starts in Budapest

There were emphatic opening wins for Liam Pitchford and Sam Walker on the first day of the Hungarian Open, while Tin-Tin Ho reached the under-21 singles quarter-finals.

The England No 2 Pitchford wasted little time in seeing off Leonid Maslovs of Latvia in four straight, while Walker was equally assured in beating Makanjuola Kazeem  of Nigeria in their opening group matches.

They play their second and final group matches tomorrow, Pitchford against Romanian Cristian Pletea and Walker against Anders Lind of Denmark.

Tom Jarvis also won his opening match, against Alexander Chen of Austria in five. He plays Germany’s Patrick Franziska tomorrow for a place in the main draw.

David McBeath won his first match by walkover and plays Lubomir Pistej of Slovakia in a winner-take-all clash to decide the group. Paul Drinkhall is seeded straight into the knockout stage.

In the women’s singles, Ho beat Tsai Yu-Chin of Chinese Taipei in four straight and tomorrow faces Rachel Moret of Switzerland, but Kelly Sibley was defeated in six by her opponent from Belarus and has a tough task against Nina Mittelham of Germany on Wednesday.

Maria Tsaptsinos, Denise Payet and Kitti Korda all lost their two group matches.

In the under-21s, Ho and Tsaptsinos both had some success. Tsaptsinos picked up a good win in her first-round match against world No 12 on the U21 list, Alina Nikitchanka of Belarus, but was beaten by a Polish opponent in the last 16.

Ho enjoyed victories against opponents from Hungary and Spain to reach the quarter-finals, where she was defeated by another host-nation player in Orsolya Feher.

Click here to watch Tin-Tin Ho’s match against Orsolya Feher

Jarvis was eliminated at the hands of Chinese Taipei’s Lin Jun-Yu in the first round of the under-21 men’s singles.

Results

Men’s Singles
Qualifying Group 3
Tom Jarvis bt Alexander Chen (AUT) 4-1 (11-5, 9-11, 11-8, 11-7, 11-8)

Group 27
Liam Pitchford bt Leonids Maslovs (LAT) 4-0 (11-6, 11-6, 11-8, 11-1)

Group 28
Sam Walker bt Makanjuola Kazeem (NGR) 4-0 (11-1, 11-5, 11-7, 11-5)

Group 32
David McBeath bt Jordy Piccolin (ITA) w/o

Women’s Singles
Group 8
Jennifer Jonsson (SWE) bt Maria Tsaptsinos 4-2 (11-6, 13-15, 6-11, 11-5, 11-9, 11-9)
Yu Mengyu (SGP) bt Tsaptsinos 4-0 (11-9, 11-7, 11-6, 11-6)

Group 21
Katsiaryna Baravok (BLR) bt Kelly Sibley 4-2 (10-12, 11-9, 11-5, 10-12, 11-7, 11-6)

Group 24
Tin-Tin Ho bt Tsai Yu-Chin (TPE) 4-0 (11-6, 11-6, 11-6, 11-3)

Group 40
Galia Dvorak (ESP) bt Denise Payet 4-1 (7-11, 11-9, 11-7, 11-5, 11-3)
Gui Lin (BRA) bt Payet 4-0 (11-3, 11-3, 11-4, 4-11, 11-6)

Group 41
Sibel Altinkaya (TUR) bt Kitti Korda 4-0 (11-5, 11-9, 11-4, 11-3)
Mateja Jeger (CRO) bt Korda 4-1 (6-11, 11-5, 11-8, 11-8, 11-6)

Under-21 Men’s Singles
Round of 32
Lin Jun-Yu (TPE) bt Tom Jarvis 3-0 (11-3, 11-5, 11-6)

Under-21 Women’s Singles
Round of 32
Tin-Tin Ho bt Leila Imre (HUN) 3-0 (11-5, 11-8, 11-7)
Maria Tsaptsinos bt Alina Nikitchanka (BLR) 3-0 (11-8, 11-7, 11-5)

Round of 16
Ho bt Zhang Xuan (ESP) 3-1 (11-8, 11-9, 8-11, 11-6)
Natalia Bajor (POL) bt Tsaptsinos 3-1 (7-11, 12-10, 15-13, 11-7)

Quarter-finals
Orsolya Feher (HUN) bt Ho 3-0 (11-8, 11-7, 13-11)

Author: via Table Tennis England
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