by Alex Hoad at the Olympic Park

Tunbridge Wells table tennis ace Will Bayley says he feels ‘fresh and ready’ to land a Paralympic medal for GB.

The 24-year-old Byng Hall TTC member is appearing in his second Games, having missed out in the preliminary round in Beijing four years ago.

Since that disappointment however the 24-year-old spent a six-week spell training in China and has progressed to be ranked No2 in the world in his Class Seven singles.

His is among the favourites for gold along with defending champion Jochen Wollmert of Germany, now ranked fifth in the world, and Ukrainian World No1 Mykhaylo Popov.

Bayley (pictured) said: “If you’re going to win it, you have to beat everyone. I don’t want to be a player who thinks, I don’t want to play him or him, because that’s a bad mentality.

“I’ve trained as hard as I can train, six hours a day, I’ve given it everything. I can look at these Games and say I could not have done any more.

“I’ve left everything on the practice court and now it’s just down to me performing in my matches, which should be the easy bit really.

“The blisters and the hard times have gone. I’m at my freshest now and I’m ready.”

Bayley – who has arthrogryposis, which affects the joints in all four limbs - begins his campaign against Thailand’s Namasanga Yuttanga in his opening Group B clash at 5.20pm on Thursday, with the other group game against Keli Liao of China at 5.20pm on Friday.

He will also compete in the Class 6-8 Team event, which begins next week.

He hopes the crowd at ExCel will be able to rival the level of support for his sport which China provided – table tennis being one of the national sports of the country.

He said: “It was raucous. There were 6,000 seats packed every day. I remember going in for the first match, taking my headphones off and thinking I was in the middle of a football stadium with people screaming.

“I hope we can create the same atmosphere here and make it a fortress. It’s going to be absolutely buzzing.”