Skegness' Tom Jarvis shines at Tokyo World Cup

The 19-year-old, from Skegness, was a bronze medal-winner at the last World Cup in London last year, but was not used in any of the matches.

This time, he featured in all three as England – ranked ninth of the 12 nations in the tournament – beat number two seeds and hosts Japan 3-1 and eighth seeds Austria 3-0 to top their group.

Jarvis played alongside Paul Drinkhall in the opening doubles match of each fixture, losing 3-0 (11-7, 11-6, 11-7) to Koki Niwa and Maharu Yoshimura in the Japan tie but beating Andreas Levenko and Daniel Habesohn of Austria 3-2 (11-8, 11-9, 8-11, 8-11, 11-9).

That put England into the quarter-finals against Chinese Taipei, the seventh-ranked nation and with higher-ranked individuals than England.

And the Asian side prevailed, taking the lead as Liao Cheng-Ting and Chen Chien-An beat Drinkhall and Jarvis 3-0 (11-9, 11-8, 11-2), and going on to win 3-0.

England will now turn their attention to the Olympic team qualifiers in Portugal in January.

If they qualify, the World Cup experience will stand them in good stead – it was the test event for Tokyo 2020 and was held at the same venue.