The draws for the women’s and men’s singles knockout stage at the Mark Bates Ltd National Championships have been completed, with some great incentives for players to win their groups and earn a match against one of England’s finest.
Tournament referee Steve Smith took charge of proceedings at the David Ross Sports Village.
Click here to watch the draw again
In the Women’s Singles, top seed Tin-Tin Ho will face the winner of Group 7, which involved Sara Williams, Mia Lakhani and Lisa Rinnhofer. If results go to seeding, there is also the chance of a repeat of the 2020 final between Ho and Mari Baldwin in the quarter-finals.
In the Men’s Singles, defending champion Tom Jarvis is seeded third and will play the winner of Group 4, involving Joe Ferguson, Naphong Boonyaprapa and Felix Thomis.
Top seed Liam Pitchford faces the winner of Group 6, which contains Shaquille Webb-Dixon, Josh Bruce and Jakub Piwowar.
Click here to go to the draw and results website
In the doubles, some up-and-coming players have been given a shot at the big stars. Foremost among them are Connor Green & Felix Thomis, who have been given a tie against Commonwealth Games champions and world top-10 pairing Liam Pitchford & Paul Drinkhall in the Men’s Doubles.
At the opposite end of the draw, Joseph Hunter & Jakub Piwowar will take on England duo Tom Jarvis & David McBeath. Jarvis won the title alongside Sam Walker last year – Walker is competing with Darius Knight this time and they will face Olly Cornish & Adam Dennison.
Last year’s beaten finalists, Chris Doran & Joe Ferguson, play Toby Ellis & Nahom Asgedom.
The top three pairs have byes in the Women’s Doubles, meaning there are some big matches to earn the right to play them, not least at the top, where Sienna Jetha & Naomi Coker face Anaya Patel & Millie Rogove, with the winners to play Tin-Tin Ho & Emily Bolton.
In the Mixed, Thomis will again line up against Pitchford, alongside Mari Baldwin & Tin-Tin Ho respectively. Ho & Pitchford are twice Commonwealth Games silver medallists in this event.
The group stages for the para 6-10 category sees Ross Wilson and Aaron McKibbin seeded to meet in the final, although world doubles champion Billy Shilton may have something to say about that in McKibbin’s group, while Ash Facey is in Group 1 with Wilson.
In the Class 2-5 category, Jack Hunter-Spivey and Megan Shackleton are the top seeds. In both competitions, the top players in each group go straight into the finals.
The groups for the Men’s Singles and Women’s Singles and the under-21 competitions have also been drawn.
The tournament gets under way with the under-21 events on Friday morning.