Liam Pitchford showed his quality when it mattered to win a deciding game against Adam Szudi in the last 32 of the WTT Contender Budapest.

Pitchford was locked at 6-6 in the fifth against his Hungarian opponent (WR 115) but a run of four scintillating points saw him ease clear, before taking his second match point to complete a 3-2 (9-11, 11-2, 10-12, 11-3, 11-7) victory.

Pitchford, the top seed for the event in the Hungarian capital, next faces Aleksandr Khanin (WR 155) of Belarus in the last 16 at 3pm UK time on Wednesday. Liam is on Table 1, which is being streamed live on the WTT website (registration required).

Meanwhile, Denise Payet and her Croatian partner Andrea Pavlovic are into the quarter-finals of the Women’s Doubles. Having come through a qualifying match against Katarina Strazar & Ana Tofant of Slovenia in four games, they then defeated Mercedes Nagyvaradi & Bernadett Balint of the host nation in a deciding fifth game in the last 16.

Their quarter-final opponents will be fourth seeds Ema Labusova & Tatiana Kukulkova of Slovakia.

In the singles, Payet went out in the qualifying round to India’s Reeth Tennison, while Tin-Tin Ho was unfortunate to draw the second seed Polina Mikhailova (WR 46) of Russia in the last 32 and was beaten in three, though she was close to taking the opening game.

Results

Men’s Singles
Round of 32
Liam Pitchford bt Adam Szudi (HUN) 3-2 (9-11, 11-2, 10-12, 11-3, 11-7)

Women’s Singles
Qualifying Round 1
Reeth Tennison (IND) bt Denise Payet 3-0 (11-8, 11-7, 11-2)

Round of 32
Polina Mikhailova (RUS) bt Tin-Tin Ho 3-0 (13-11, 11-4, 11-4)

Women’s Doubles
Qualifying Round 1
Denise Payet & Andrea Pavlovic (CRO) bt Katarina Strazar & Ana Tofant (SLO) 3-1 (11-6, 11-4, 7-11, 11-9)

Round of 16
Payet & Pavlovic bt Mercedes Nagyvaradi & Bernadett Balint (HUN) 3-2 (11-8, 8-11, 11-8, 10-12, 11-6)