BRECON table tennis player Rob Davies bounced back from an unexpected defeat in his singles event to help Great Britain win a team gold medal at the PTT Bayreuth Open in Germany.

Rob, from Brecon, joined fellow Welshmen Tom Matthews and Paul Davies to beat World champions Italy to win the men’s class 1 team event.

Earlier in the week Rob had suffered a rare off day losing to Sylvio Keller from Switzerland and young Italian Federico Falco in the qualifying round of the men’s class 1 singles.

It meant the Rio gold medallist failed to go through to the quarter-finals.

But after this disappointment Rob Davies and Matthews won their first three matches in the round-robin men’s class 1 event and their final match against Italy, who were also unbeaten, to decide the gold.

After a marathon doubles that the Italians eventually clinched 3-2, Matthews levelled the tie with a 3-1 win against Federico Falco and Rob secured the gold with a 3-0 win against Andrea Borgato, who had beaten him in the final of the Slovenia Open last month.

“It has been a real rollercoaster of emotions for me,” said Rob.

“Having played the worst singles event for many years it was a real challenge to pick myself back up for the team event.

“The boys played great throughout and it was a real team performance.

“Tom and I won all the doubles except the last against Italy which we lost in the fifth but it was a great match.

“Tom pulled a top class win out of the bag beating Falco for me to have a chance to play against Borgato.

“It was just redemption for me having that chance and I loved the opportunity.

“I played some of my best table tennis to beat him 3-0 to finish off a great team event for all three of us with gold.”

Paul Davies, who had also suffered disappointment in the singles, said: “The team event was justice at last with Rob, Tom and I beating the Italian team to take the gold so happy days.”

While Matthews added: “It was a tough start to the tournament.

“Losing 3-1 to Park and 11-9 in the fifth to Borgato was pretty gutting but it just wasn’t my day.

“It was great to play alongside Rob and Paul again – we played some great table tennis and we know what we need to do to strengthen our performances but to beat the World champions Italy was a great feeling.”