$re = '~<td><a [^>]+?>(.*?)</a></td>~m';
$str = '<td><a class="x">1</a></td>
<td><a class="y">2</a></td>
<td><a class="z">3</a></td>
';
$subst = "<td>$1</td>";
$result = preg_replace($re, $subst, $str);
echo "The result of the substitution is ".$result;
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php