John Leach believes his battling Brits can bounce back from their opening Pool A defeat at the hands of Portugal to claim a vital victory against Uruguay today.
Team GB fought to the end with No.1 Christian Medina Murphy and Sam Jones particularly impressive in the final but dead rubber in extending the world-class Miguel Oliveira and Afonso Ramos to a third set before going down 6-3.
Earlier there had been straight sets defeats for Richard Brooks and Louie Harris and the Sandy Farquharson /Nikhil Mohindra pairing as the Portuguese placed a deadly tourniquet around the tie.
But with Uruguay, who were barely competitive in succumbing to a 3-0 whitewash by World Champions Spain, next up for Team GB on Centre Court in today’s final tie, Leach says he has seen enough to believe his boys can shoot down the South American señors to claim the victory that would mean Team GB don’t need to qualify for the next World Championships.
The GB head coach said last night: “We were super-close in all three matches and had chances in the first set of the second tie with Sandy and Nikhil who put a lot into that one only to come up just short.
“In the final match Christian and Sam took the opener in very impressive fashion and the second set was really tight and ultimately they have just been beaten in almost two hours but there was nothing in it.
“So I’m really happy with the fight the boys produced, the guys were competitive in all three matches and it was a much stronger performance than at Derby so we will take these positives and move on to Uruguay determined to go into tomorrow’s match like we did today.
“That said we know their strength and depth and it will be no easier than against Portugal.”
As he headed off into the dark of the Dubai night Leach admitted he will face a sleepless night analysing the Uruguay line-up from their opening match and second-guess how their cards will fall today in order to gain any advantage possible.
He said: “It’s always a game of chess when you look at the other sides and how they lined up and we will analyse that and try as best we can to get the strongest match up against them.
“If you win it in this respect it can be very rewarding, if you don’t it can be a tough day at the office, so I have plenty of work to tonight. But the main thing is we know how much of an improvement that was against Portugal, while we may have been beaten we are certainly not bowed and will be good to go against Uruguay tomorrow – no question.”
Yet despite this bitter defeat there is no doubt that this was a vastly improved performance against the same Portuguese side who had vanquished Leach’s lads in their meeting at the World Championship qualifiers in Derby last month.
Despite accepting Uruguay will be just as desperate for victory tomorrow the GB head coach is keeping the faith in his men: “Any team that faces Spain has the biggest challenge in padel and we know that Uruguay will be desperate to beat us.
Richard Brooks and Louie Harris were first to take to the court at the Aviation Club and in a tight match with Miguel Deus and Nuno Deus all it took was one break in either set to hand the Portuguese the best start possible as they claimed a 6-3, 6-4 victory.
Next up for Team GB were Sandy Farquharson and Nikhil Mohindra but after a tight opening set with nothing in it, Araujo Pedro, and Pascoal Vasco broke Farquharson at 4-4 and then held to take the initial stanza 6-4.
Disappointingly Mohindra was broken in his first service game of the second set to hand the Portuguese pairing a crucial breakthrough and they were never to relinquish control as they took the second and decisive set 6-2 to annexe a victory in one hour 12 minutes.
That left GB top guns No.1 Christian Medina Murphy and Sam Jones to face Miguel Oliveira and Afonso Ramos in the final but dead rubber.
The British pairing took the game to their illustrious opponents from the beginning and broke in the third game to open up a 3-1 lead only to be hauled back to level pegging at 4-4.
In a rollercoaster first set they were to harvest the second of their 10 break points to claim a 7-5 triumph that pointed to some British pride being saved.
However the Portuguese battled there way back to parity and when Murphy uncharacteristically buried an overhead in the net Jones was broken at 4-5 and Oliveira and Ramos had the second set wrapped up 6-4.
The decisive break came in the fourth game of the third set when Jones succumbed to the unrelenting pressure and ultimately the premier British pairing were left empty-handed despite a performance of both promise and bloody-mindedness that was cruelly left unrewarded after an epic 1 hour 57-minute contest.
Meanwhile GB star Louie Harris has warned his team-mates that they can expect a wounded animal when Uruguay take to the court tomorrow and he said: “It’s all on the line for both us and Uruguay and after their defeat to Spain I expect them to come out all guns blazing – they will be a like a wounded animal.
“They have a proud record at the World Championships and of course they were quarter-finalists last time around and just like us they will be desperate to claim that victory that will help them avoid qualifying next time round so we know how tough it will be against them but we are well up for it.
“We were much more competitive against Portugal than at the qualifiers in Derby and we must take the positives from that and go again with everything we have tomorrow.”
Harris is also hoping his partnership of experience and youth with Richard Brooks will be given a second run out against the South Americans: “For sure Richard and I would love to give it another crack against Uruguay. We felt we weren’t far away in the Portuguese tie and we are desperate to get back out there and get a victory for Team GB.”
Watch today’s match with Uruguay live here.
