Tin-Tin Ho nearly causes a big upset at the European Championships

Paddington’s Tin-Tin Ho came agonisingly close to one of the biggest victories of her career before bowing out of the European Championships in Budapest.

The teenager, ranked No 214 in the world, led Hungary’s world No 34 Georgina Pota 3-0 in the last 64 of the women’s singles.

But her experienced opponent, enjoying vocal support from her home crowd, turned the match around and eventually won it 4-3.

Ho had earlier battled through her qualifying group with two wins from three, which secured her place in the knockout stage.

There was consolation in the mixed doubles, where Ho and Liam Pitchford defeated two seeded pairs on their way to the quarter-finals.

The duo, who won Commonwealth Games silver at Glasgow 2014, showed their partnership is still solid as they beat Czech pair Tomas Polansky and Renata Strbikova 3-2 in the preliminary round to reach the main draw.

They then came from 2-0 down to defeat 14th seeds Joao Geraldo and Yu Fu of Portugal 3-2 and followed that up by sinking the seventh seeds Wang Yang (Slovakia) and Polina Mikhailova (Russia) 3-1.

That put them into the last eight, but they found third seeds and eventual silver medallists Mattias Karlsson and Matilda Ekholm of Sweden too strong, though they acquitted themselves well in a 3-0 (11-9, 14-12, 11-8) defeat.

England team-mate Kelly Sibley’s late withdrawal through injury meant Ho did not compete in the women’s doubles.