NORTHAMPTON’S Andrew Baggaley stumbled at the first hurdle as Team GB crashed out of the men’s team table tennis with a whimper against Portugal.
British No.1 Paul Drinkhall, who reached the third round of the men’s singles, got Team GB off to the perfect start winning his first set before going down 3-1 to Marcos Freitas.
That put the pressure on the shoulders of 19-year-old Liam Pitchford and, like Drinkhall, he hit the ground running by taking the first set 11-9 only to lose the next three 11-5, 11-7, 11-8 to the experienced Joao Monteiro.
Baggaley, who is England’s leading table tennis player in Commonwealth Games history having picked up five medals across three tournaments, partnered Pitchford in the doubles but they could not stop the rot losing the first set 11-5 to the pairing of Tiago Apolonia and Monteiro who made quick work of wrapping up the match 11-7 and 11-9.
And after a sobering experience in front of a raucous British crowd – Baggaley insisted it wasn’t all doom and gloom.
“We got off to a good start but I faded away,” said Baggaley. “I made some easy mistakes which is frustrating. We are a young team and there’s a lot of table tennis ahead of us.
“It was a great experience for me in front of a great crowd. I was a little bit nervous to start with but I calmed down and I just loved playing out there. It was obviously disappointing to lose but
“We have worked hard to get to this point but we knew we would be underdogs.
“We showed our passion and desire in this. We can take a lot of positives out of it.
“Certainly on our day we are a very dangerous team who can beat all the top teams. We can take our game to the op level. We did the best we could.”
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