DRUMCHAPEL Table Tennis Club’s Martin Perry took team bronze in men’s class 6 at the ITTF PTT Slovenia Open where he competed against some of the best teams in the world.

The para table tennis ace and Welshman Paul Karabardak began with a great win against European champions Denmark, combining really well to win the doubles 3-2 before Karabardak defeated Michael Jensen 3-0 in the first singles to win the tie for GB 2-0. They followed that up with a 2-0 win against the Spanish/Irish partnership of Alberto Seoane and Des Ryan to progress to the semi-finals as group winners.

Perry said: “I thought Paul and I played really well, we played some very clever table tennis at times and dug deep when we had to so it was great to get a win over the European champions.”

In the the semi-finals they could not find the same form and lost 2-0 to a combined team of Rungroj Thainiyom, the Paralympic champion and world number three from Thailand, and the Italian Raimondo Alecci.

The doubles was close in all four sets, but Thainiyom and Alecci took it 3-1 and the experienced Alecci then secured the win for his team by beating Karabardak 3-1.

“Doubles today was tough,” admitted 21-year-old Perry, who is now based with the GB Para Table Tennis Team in Sheffield. “They have a lot of experience in that team including the Paralympic champion and they’ve got some really awkward styles to play against, but regardless of that I thought that Paul and I played some really good table tennis at times. We won one set and were tight in the others so it is something we can definitely learn from. Moving forward we are only going to get stronger."