Sam Walker could not join Liam Pitchford in the main draw of the WTT Contender Lima as he was beaten in the final qualifying round.

Walker (pictured above) won his first match of the tournament against Carlos Ishida of Brazil at the second qualifying round stage, but Chen Chien-An of Chinese Taipei was a different proposition in the next match.

The left-hander is currently ranked 172, but was inside the top 80 earlier this year and has been as high as 17.

Walker, ranked 89, started slowly and won only 10 points across the first two games, but he fought hard in the third, taking it 16-14. However, Chen won the fourth to advance to the main draw.

Pitchford is seeded fifth at the event in Peru and will face Japan’s Ryoichi Yoshiyama in the last 32 at 9.40pm UK time on Thursday. The match is on table 2 and will be shown live on the WTT YouTube channel.

Results

Qualifying round 2
Sam Walker bt Carlos Ishida (BRA) 3-1 (11-8, 11-7, 8-11, 11-4)

Qualifying round 3
Chen Chien-An (TPE) bt Walker 3-1 (11-7, 11-3, 14-16, 11-7)