England's singles players defeated at the European Championships

England's three surviving singles players all suffered third-round defeats at the European Championship in Bratislava yesterday. Chesterfield's Matthew Syed, the England men's No 1, was unable to overcome the French No 2, Patrick Chila, who won 21-15, 21-18, 10-21, 21-14. Lisa Lomas, the England No 1 from Luton, was crushed 21-9, 21-9, 21-13 in the women's competition by Ni Xia Lian, the Chinese player representing Luxembourg. And although the English No 2, Andrea Holt from Lancashire, almost stretched Christina Toth to a fourth game the Hungarian eventually emerged a 21-11, 21-14, 23-21 winner.

EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIP (Bratislava, Slovak) Men's singles, third round: P Chila (Fr) bt M Syed (Eng) 21-15 21-18 10-21 21-14. Men's doubles, semi- finals: J-O Waldner and J Persson (Swe) bt K Kreanga (Gr) and Z Kalinic (Yug) 21-17 21-10; A Grubba and L Blaszczyk (Pol) bt J Rosskopf and S Fetzner (Ger) 21-16 21-17. Women's singles, third round: Ni Xia Lian (Lux) bt L Lomas (Eng) 21-9 21-9 21-13; C Toth (Hun) bt A Holt (Eng) 21-11 21- 14 23-21. Women's doubles, semi-finals: B Vriesekoop and E Noor (Neth) bt R Garkauskaite and J Prusiene (Lith) 21-15 13-21 21-16; N Struse and E Schall (Ger) bt O Badescu and E Ciosu (Rom) 18-21 21-12 21-18.