England’s Connor Green has been reflecting on his first experience of a Smash event after just missing out on the main draw at the Europe Smash in Sweden.

The teenager, ranked No 145 in the world, won two qualifying matches – including one of his biggest victories as he defeated Croatia’s Andrej Gacina (WR 56).

He then missed out to the higher-ranked Izaac Quek of Singapore in the third and final qualifying round.

Green said: “I was really happy to beat Gacina in the second round, but I try not to think too much about who I’m playing. I think it puts a bit more pressure on myself, or it takes me away from my goals that I’m focusing on, which is to try and play well in every match and do the things I’ve been working on.

“So, it’s more about that for me, just trying to keep improving every match I play and then trying to learn from the matches I play and take it back to training.”

Green also played in both doubles competitions as he and Tom Jarvis lost out in four close games to Eduard Ionescu & Darius Movileanu of Romania and, alongside Tin-Tin Ho, took the Germany-Puerto Rico pair of Patrick Franziska & Adriana Diaz to five games in the Mixed.

Green said: “I managed to play all three events, so I got a lot of matches – and I spent a few days there as well practising with a lot of good players. So, I think in that sense it was really good for me to be at one of the best tournaments there is to play.

“I was really happy with my performance as well, to win a few rounds and have a close match in singles and also two close matches in doubles, which could have gone either way.

“I think the Smashes will help if I can keep playing more of them, because all the best players play, so it’s more experience for me to keep playing against them and then hopefully keep improving as well.”