Six British athletes collected individual medals at the para table tennis China Open including two silvers.

Jack Hunter-Spivey and Ashley Facey-Thompson both finished runners-up in their finals while Megan Shackleton, Fliss Pickard, Joshua Stacey, and Kim Daybell all took bronze.

After topping his group yesterday Hunter-Spivey beat Japan’s Toru Nakamoto 3-1 in the quarter-final and 2017 Asian champion Zhan Dashun from China 3-0 before losing 3-1 to China’s Paralympic champion Cao Ningning.

“I’m really happy with the way I played out here,” said Hunter-Spivey.

“I am also really pleased to navigate my way through to the final beating some good players on the way.

“This was a big competition for me in terms of qualification for Tokyo and feel I handled the pressure well and it was a great end to the year.”

Meanwhile, Facey-Thompson showed great spirit to come back from 2-1 down and beat Japanese world number three Koyo Iwabuchi in the semi-final.

In the final he again fought back from 2-0 down against Zhao to level at 2-2 but the Chinese player took the match and the gold 11-8 in the fifth.

“I had to dig deep against Koyo. It was a good match but I had the upper hand in the end and managed to win ,” said Facey Thompson.

“I started slowly in the final but I kept a cool head and managed to get back into the match but my opponent played well. Overall I’m happy with silver.”

Elsewhere Stacey was unable to make it an all-British final in men’s class 9, losing 3-0 to Zhao in the semi-final.

“I played well in patches but in the semi-final Zhao was a lot better at being solid for the first three balls of a rally and was the better player by a wide margin from start to finish,” said Stacey.

“I’m looking forward to playing in the team event with Igor Misztal from Poland and seeing how well we can do.”

Photo credit: BritishParaTT

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