England get their European Team Championships qualifying campaign under way on Thursday 8th December with a trip to Serbia.

Liam Pitchford, Paul Drinkhall, Sam Walker and Tom Jarvis travel to Belgrade for the first of four home-and-away qualifying ties.

The match will be streamed live on ETTU TV at 17:00. England are in Group A3 with Serbia and France.

The matches are the first stage of qualifying for the Championships, which will be held in Sweden in September next year.

Pitchford said: “It will be a tough test. We’ve played them quite a few times recently – last time in the Europeans we won 3-2 but had match points against us.

“They’re always going to fight and never give up. They’re a good team and have beaten us before.”

The last time England played away to Serbia, it resulted in a 3-0 victory for the home side, with Drinkhall losing 3-2 to Alexander Karakasevic, Pitchford going down by the same score to Zsolt Peto and Walker being defeated 3-1 by Marko Petkov.

That was in May 2018 – and the following November, Serbia won the return match 3-1 in Gillingham with Jarvis winning the first match against Ivor Katic but Drinkhall, Walker and Jarvis then going down to Peto, Karakasevic and Peto respectively in the next three matches.

Since then, England have beaten Serbia 3-2 at the European Championships final tournament in September 2021 – Pitchford winning two and Walker one, with defeats for Drinkhall and Jarvis. Walker (pictured above) saved three match points in the fourth match to keep England in the tie.