Back to winning ways against Thailand
25th May 2010by Malcolm Macfarlane
The listing was posted by English Table Tennis Association
The England Men's Team has two matches today at the Liebherr 2010 World Team Table Tennis Championships in Moscow. Their first opponents of the day were Thailand and all was relatively plain sailing in this one.
Paul Drinkhall started the match well with a three straight victory over Nikom Wongsiri, the Thai no 3. Liam Pitchford then followed to play the Thai no 1, Chaisit Chaitat, first game went to Liam but the next two slipped away, and in the fourth game Liam had to pull out all the stops to recover from a poor start in the game. The fifth was another tight one that in the end went to Liam, a good win for Liam against a player only a little behind him in the world rankings.
Third match saw Danny Reed make his first appearance at these championships, he faced the Thai no 2, Yuttana Tubbunmee. First game went to the Thai in a close one but Danny got the tactics just right to take the next two games easily. Fourth game Danny got stuck on 9 for an awfully long time but in the end he came through 13-11 to seal a 3-0 team match result for England.
England men have a second game later today, the one that will determine their chances of promotion against top seeds in the group the Slovak Republic. That match is at 16:30 UK Time
Results
England 3 Thailand 0
DRINKHALL Paul beat WONGSIRI Nikom 11-3, 11-6, 11-2
PITCHFORD Liam beat CHAITAT Chaisit 11-5, 12-14, 8-11, 12-10, 11-8
REED Daniel beat TUBBUNMEE Yuttana 9-11, 11-1, 11-2, 13-11
Photo: Danny Reed, a successful return to the number three slot