Tom Jarvis’ brilliant run at the World Championships in Doha is over, losing in six games to world No 5 Liang Jingkun of China in the last 16.

Having beaten the 10th seeded former European champion Dang Qiu and the Romanian national champion Iulian Chirita in the two previous rounds, Jarvis knew he had the weaponry to worry Liang.

As if to underline that, Jarvis set the tone with a blistering start, opening up 5-1 and 7-2 leads in the first game.

When he led 8-5, the umpire issued a service warning for exceeding the 30 degree angle of the toss. Even though this would have resulted in a let, Jarvis chose to challenge the decision through the Table Tennis Review system. The verdict was an angle of just over 34 degrees, meaning Jarvis lost the challenge and also had the point awarded against him.

However, Jarvis overcame that setback and continued to play positively, notching the game 11-8.

Jarvis continued to ask questions almost every rally, living with Liang – who knocked out Liam Pitchford at the same stage of the Worlds four years ago – and making his illustrious opponent earn every point.

Of course, Liang is No 5 in the world for a reason and demonstrated that in winning four out of five points from 7-7 in the second to level the score.

It was 11-9 to the Chinese in the third but Jarvis remained in the match and suddenly had a run from 3-5 down win the remaining points in the fourth game. He was not even fazed by Liang asking for a let at 10-5, claiming a wet ball, thumping a clean forehand winner on the replayed point to level up the score.

Gavin Evans in the corner advised Jarvis to believe in himself before he went back out for the fifth and, although there was no suggestion his belief was faltering, that game proved to be the most ragged of the match from Jarvis as unforced errors – and a service fault – saw Liang run through it 11-2.

The instruction from Evans now was “disturb his rhythm” but if anything Liang seemed intent on disrupting Jarvis as, for the third game in a row, he claimed a wet ball. Jarvis had one that point to go 3-0 up, but Liang took the replayed point and moved into a 3-2 lead, prompting the English timeout.

Liang continued to apply pressure, taking the next three points before Jarvis broke the spell. At 8-3 it looked as if Liang had finally got the better of Jarvis, but Tom took the next two points to prompt the Liang timeout.

Whatever was said, it worked as Liang took the next two points to bring up five match points. One was saved, but Jarvis went long and Liang threw back his head in half celebration and half relief.

Not to be for Jarvis but he will leap up to around 80 in the world rankings next week and the confidence he can take from his run to the last 16 will surely act as a springboard to go higher.

Result

Men’s Singles
Round of 16
Liang Jingkun (CHN) bt Tom Jarvis 4-2 (8-11, 11-8, 11-9, 5-11, 11-2, 11-6)