Two bronze medals for British team in doubles events at the World Championships
The British team secured two bronze medals in the doubles events at the ITTF World Para Championships in Pattaya, Thailand today with Chris Ryan and Tom Matthews taking bronze in men’s class 4 and Will Bayley and Bly Twomey taking bronze in mixed class 14. However, there was huge disappointment for Joshua Morizono and Aaron McKibbin who had to withdraw from men’s class 18 due to McKibbin’s illness.
Men’s class 4
Chris Ryan and Tom Matthews recovered from 10-7 down in the first set of their quarterfinal to level at 10-10 against Federico Crosara and Federico Falco and then secured the set 12-10 with a perfectly executed tetraloop from Matthews. They led 7-3 and 9-7 in the second set but the Italians levelled at 9-9 and went on to take it 11-9 to make it 1-1. Ryan and Matthews restored their lead by taking the third set 11-7 and clinched a 3-1 win by taking the fourth set 11-5.
They took on the world number one ranked pair Kim Hyeon Uk and Jang Yeongjin in the semi-finals and the Asian Para Games champions from the Republic of Korea showed their experience in a 3-0 win.
“I think we were definitely getting to grips with them in the third set,” said Matthews. “The tactics were right, it was just the execution but they are the number one team in the world for a reason and we can go back and watch the match, analyse it and see what we can do against them next time - hopefully in LA. I’m really proud of the way we played against Italy. They also played really well, and we had to come out of the blocks fighting and we did ourselves proud. To secure another medal is an amazing feeling - we’ve only been playing together for a year so there is a lot more to come from us.”
“It’s an amazing feeling to win a medal at my first World Championships,” said Ryan. “I’m just so proud of Tom and myself for being able to get the win against Italy earlier – two very similar players to us in each of our classes and to put in the performance that we did was perfect and everything we had worked on. If you had told us five months ago that we would be world championship bronze medallists, we might not have believed you, but we’ve put a lot of work in. It is difficult for us playing in MD4 because we are essentially MD3 – a two and a one playing against athletes with a bit more function. Both of us on our day can beat anyone in our classes so we just need to take this confidence through to the singles.”
Four years ago Ryan had only just started playing table tennis after switching sports from wheelchair rugby and he has made rapid progress to be challenging the best players in the world in his class.
“I am proud,” he said. “I think four years ago I may have done my first Pathway session when the guys were competing at the last World Championships in Spain. I feel that I’ve done a lot more than four years training in the four years I’ve been playing. It’s just a lot of hard work and practising the right things with help from my teammates and coaches – a lot of watching and studying.”
Mixed class 14
After their heroic win against Ukraine yesterday Will Bayley and Bly Twomey edged the first set 12-10 in their quarterfinal against men’s class 7 European champion Yannick Paredis and women’s class 7 four-time Paralympic champion Kelly Van Zon from the Netherlands and then took the second 11-8 to lead 2-0. At 3-1 down in the third Paredis and Van Zon took a timeout, and it seemed to switch the momentum of the match in their favour as they took the set 11-6. The Dutch pair led 5-3 in the fourth but Bayley and Twomey came storming back to take the set 11-6 and the match 3-1.
That took them through to a semi-final against men’s class 6 former Paralympic champion Rungroj Thainiyom and Kanlaya Chaiwut-Kriabklang, who were bronze medallists in Spain four years ago. The pair from Thailand edged a tight first set 11-9 and then took the second 11-9 to lead 2-0 but Bayley and Twomey fought back superbly, taking the third set 11-9 and then saving two match points in the fourth before securing it 14-12 to level the match. They led 6-3 in the deciding set, but Thainiyom and Chaiwut-Kriabklang levelled at 6-6 at which point Twomey required a medical timeout after a fall. She returned to the court but was clearly struggling with her movement and Thailand took the set 11-7 and the match 3-2.
“It is always tough to lose those really close ones,” said Bayley. “I was trying to force it a bit too much towards the end because I knew that Bly was struggling with her leg, so it was difficult mentally because I was worried about Bly, but I wanted us to win. I thought Bly stuck in there really well and she kept trying but she couldn’t move that well. I was just proud that when we were 2-0 down, we said to each other ‘let’s just fight for each other’ and that is what we did.
“To win a bronze medal is a great achievement. Whoever wins the final it will be close and I think we are as good as any team in the world. Once we had that brilliant first win against Ukraine, we could have gone all the way but that is sport – the margins are so close. Thailand did well and hung in and played some good shots at the end. We were up 6-3 then I missed the receive and I could have done better and made some better decisions, but it was tough out there and very intense. It was difficult for Bly to carry on so I’m pleased we got to the end of the match.”
All 12 British athletes will be in action in the singles events that start tomorrow and conclude on Thursday.