England reach WSF Women’s World Team Championship quarter-finals

England will face France in the quarter-finals of the WSF Women’s World Team Championship as they finished runners up in Pool C following a narrow defeat to 5/6 seeds Hong Kong, China.

No.3 seeds England, seven-time winners and 2018 finalists, went into the tie with Hong Kong having recorded convincing wins over South Africa and Ukraine, but were undone by a determined performance from the Asian Team Champions.

Hong Kong took the lead in the tie when Sin Yuk Chan came from 2-1 down to beat Jasmine Hutton 3-2 in 44 minutes.

England No.1 Sarah-Jane Perry then showed some of the best of her fighting spirit in the second match.

After Hong Kong No.1 Tomato Ho took a 2-1 lead, Perry responded with a brutal 11-0 bagel to force a fifth game. ‘The Gladiator’ then pulled England level with a convincing 11-4 win.

Lucy Turmel, promoted to No.3 after England No.2 Gina Kennedy was forced to withdraw through illness and injury ahead of the tournament, made a great start to her clash with Tsz-Wing Tong as she opened a 2-0 lead on the back of a good attacking game.

Tong, however, dug in impressively and forced a fifth game with 11-8, 11-5 victories. World No.31 Turmel pushed hard for a win that would have seen England top the group, but was unable to get the better of Tong, with the World No.44 taking the final game 11-9.

Afterwards, England coach David Campion said: "You don't like losing of course, you never want to lose, we went out to win it. Those matches were all really close.

”But you don't win medals in the pool stage.

`We went into this looking to qualify and we have. Obviously, we would have preferred to have topped the group, but Malaysia and France are so close anyway. It's just important to try and come through unscathed and we've done that. It's disappointing to lose a match but it's not over by any means. We'll regroup tonight and take as many positives out of it as we can."

England will play France in the quarter-finals after the No.4 seeds beat 5/6 seeds Malaysia 2-1. The match will be played at 17:30 GMT and will be streamed free on worldsquash.tv.

A victory over France tomorrow would set up a tie with either No.2 seeds USA or 7/8 seeds Canada in the semi-finals.

Result: WSF Women’s World Team Championship Pool C:

[3] ENGLAND 1-2 [5/6] HONG KONG, CHINA

Jasmine Hutton 2-3 Sin Yuk Chan: 7-11, 11-2, 11-9, 3-11, 10-12 (44m)

Sarah-Jane Perry 3-2 Tomato Ho: 12-10, 7-11, 6-11, 11-0, 11-4 (50m)

Lucy Turmel 2-3 Tsz-Wing Tong: 11-5, 11-9, 8-11, 5-11, 9-11 (50m)