England off to flying start

Liam Pitchford and Andrew Baggaley gave England a solid start in the European Table Tennis Championship in Herning.

Pitchford held off a strong fightback to defeat Poland's Jakub Dyjas 11-6 11-8 9-11 7-11 11-6, while team-mate Baggaley was an 11-9 9-11 11-7 13-11 winner over Belgium's Julien Indeherberg in Denmark.

Earlier, Pitchford had partnered Paul Drinkhall to doubles victories over Finland's Roope Kantola and Benedek Olah, and the Slovakian pair of Samuel Novota and Peter Sereda.

Baggaley, partnered by Portugal's Andre Silva, won a deciding set victory over Ukraine's Ivan Katkov and Oleksandr Didukh, while British duo Darius Knight and Daniel Reed won two games against pairs from Belarus and Romania respectively.

Knight and Reed endured mixed fortunes in their singles openers, with Knight beating Kasper Sternberg in five sets while Reed went down to Czech Tomas Tregler.

In the women's singles, Kelly Sibley bounced back from an early defeat to Romania's Cristina Hiraci to beat Maryia Kuchuk of Belarus in the evening sesion, while Joanna Parker won two out of two against opponents from Kosovo and Slovenia respectively.

Sibley and Parker also combined to make a strong start in the women's doubles competition, with an 11-6 8-11 11-9 11-3 win over Turkish duo Ipek Karahan and Sanem Ezgi Sahin followed by victory over a Romanian pair.

Charlotte Carey of Wales beat Italy's Elisa Trotti in five sets to round off a mixed day which had also brought an earlier singles defeat and both a win and a loss in the doubles competition.

Compatriots Angharad Phillips and Meghan Phillips lost all three of their doubles matches, and also lost their opening singles matches. England's Tin Tin Ho also suffered two singles defeats.