by Ian Marshall, Editor

They made a fine start to proceedings recording a three-nil win in opposition to the outfit formed by Finland’s Sofie Eriksson who joined forces with the Welsh duo of Anna Hursey and Beth Richards.

An impressive opening success but the Portuguese trio was not able to repeat the feat. In their next encounter they experienced a three-one defeat at the hands of the combination formed by Spain’s Ana Pedregosa who partnered India’s Manushree Patil and Anusha Kutumble, before suffering by three matches to nil when facing China’s Qin Xiaoce, Xin Chenglin and Wang Yuhuan.

The Chinese trio remained unbeaten throughout to top the group; Ana Pedregosa, Manushree Patil and Anusha Kutumble concluded matters in second place.

Meanwhile, in the adjacent group there were no such problems for the second seeds. Sweden’s Jennie Edvinsson, Hanna Holgersson and Alma Roose duly remained unbeaten to reserve first place ahead of Spain’s Nerea Garcia, Andrea Perez and Ana Marie Vertiz.

Progress to the main draw for the Spanish trio but it was hard earned; in their concluding contest they were stretched the full five match distance by the Netherlands outfit formed by Emine Ernst, Emma Van der Zanden Karlijn and Van Lierop. The player to cause the problems being Emine Ernst; she accounted for Nerea Garcia (9-11, 11-7, 11-8, 11-6) and Andrea Perez (9-11, 11-7, 9-11, 11-5, 12-10). Defeat for Nerea Garcia but she had the last laugh; in the vital fifth and deciding match of the engagement, she beat Karlijn Van Lierop (17-15, 6-11, 11-8, 11-6) to seal the victory.

Play in Guimarães concludes on Friday 30th November.