England stops Egypt’s World Cup ambition

The dream of the Egyptian team making it to the quarterfinal stage of the 2018 International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) Team World Cup was cut short, as host, England beat the African representative 3-1 in the final Group B match of the championship.

Having lost their first group match to Japan on Thursday, England and Egypt were determined to join Japan in the quarterfinal.

After injury ruled out Egypt’s star player, Omar Assar, the task of leading the Egyptian team was thrust on veterans, El-Sayed Lashin and Ahmed Saleh.

Lashin and Saleh who are former African doubles champions combined to face England’s duo of Paul Drinkhall and Sam Walker, but it was the Englishmen that carried the day to give the host team a 1-0 lead.

Egypt’s Mohammed El-Beiali’s attempt to restore parity was resisted by in-form Liam Pitchford, who contained El-Beiali with a 3-0 scoreline to give England a 2-0 lead.