PAUL Drinkhall was unable to prevent England losing their opening three matches in the team event at the European Table Tennis Championships in Poland.
Loftus-born Drinkhall is the English number one and will hope to represent Great Britain at next year's Olympics in London.
However, he suffered three defeats as England lost to Belarus, Hungary and Russia in the last major European event before the Games.
Drinkhall won the opening set against Belarussian Evgueni Chtchetinine, but slumped to a 3-1 defeat as England lost 3-1 despite teenager Liam Pitchford pulling off a shock victory over world number nine Vladimir Samsonov.
The Teessider then suffered 3-1 defeats to Hungarian Daniel Kosiba and Russian Alexander Shibaev as England failed to progress to the last eight of the team event.
They will now compete in a ranking event to determine the places from ninth to 16th.
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