Christian Murphy has warned his GB team mates that only their best will be good enough to beat The Netherlands, who he predicted would be “super tough” to avoid going Dutch against.
John Leach’s men defeated Egypt 2-1, this morning, in what turned out to be their penultimate match of the 2022 Padel World Championships in Dubai.
Although the Dutch, at the time of writing are still to face Qatar at 6pm tonight, the Oranje are likely to have far too much in the locker for their Middle Eastern opponents.
After Murphy and his partner Sam Jones suffered a surprise defeat at the hands of the Egyptian No.1 pairing of Alaa Aahmed and Hossam Youssef in a two-hour marathon earlier today, the pair are looking to bounce back against the talented Dutch.
And Murphy has nothing but respect for a side whose top order pairing of Sten Richters and Bram Meijers are the most successful duo on the FIP RISE tour, in which they have already won three titles this year.
The Dutch side have already dispatched both the UAE and Egypt 3-0 in the battle of the 13-17 placings bracket and Murphy is under no illusion as to how tough it will be to sign off with a final victory: “Holland will be super tough with a strong, strong team and especially their top pairing of Sten Richters and Bram Meijers have won a lot of FIP tournaments in Europe this summer, so our level will have to be super high.
“It has been a week of lows and now highs and what we want to make sure is that we finish with the win and the highest possible placing we can get which is 13th.
“When you look at the fact Portugal beat Brazil last night to make the semi-finals and Spain are also in there and they were both in our group that shows you how tough it was in Group A.
“If we’d had a bit of luck with the draw things may have been different but that’s life all we can do now is focus on the Dutch.”
For his part Murphy was quick to share his certainty that his teammates would always bail the Brits out after his surprise top of the order loss with partner Sam Jones against the Egyptians.
He said: “Although Sam and I are disappointed to lose to the Egyptians they were at a really good level and there was very little in it and the match swung on just a couple of points.
“But it was great to have Richard and Louie and Sandy and Nikhil following us as we knew that they would make it really tough for the Egyptians and they did a great job of getting us the win.”
Head Coach John Leach once again sent out his top guns first, but this time the plan didn’t work as Murphy and Jones found themselves on the wrong end of a three-set defeat, that spanned just over two hours.
The Brits took the first stanza on a single break 6-4 against Alaa Aahmed and Hossam Youssef after claiming a second and decisive break at the business end of the opening battle.
But the match was to hinge in a titanic 50-minute second set, which the Egyptian duo took on the tie-break after both pairings had exchanged earlier service breaks.
There was nothing in it again in the deciding set but this time it was the Egyptian No.1 pairing who edged it when they converted an eighth break point to get the win, 6-4 in the third.
Yet GB were back on level terms in five minutes over the hour when Richard Brooks and Louie Harris came good 6-4, 6-3 against Nagy Khaled and Wakhim Georges with a solitary break in either set, despite the fact they had carved out a total of nine similar opportunities.
All of which left Nikhil Mohindra and Sandy Farquharson to take to the court for the decider against Hanna Tamer and Abousenna Seifallah with everything on the line.
In truth this turned out to become a complete anti-climax, with the level of the Egyptian pairing no better than the average weekend punter at Rocks Lane.
Thus just 44-minutes later the Brits had posted a 6-1, 6-1 victory to take them into the final play-off fixture with Holland on a real high.
Reflecting on a week he has plainly enjoyed win or lose Murphy said: “It has been important to beat UAE and Qatar 3-0 and produce our best form after the group games.
“The organisation and the accommodation have been superb out here in Dubai and the whole experience has been a great one.
“It is also clear that every country is improving as we found out against Egypt and also Qatar. We must fight to the very end to finish 13th and we are determined to achieve that and go home on the win.”
