Roehampton captain Craig de Silva is hoping his side’s triumph in the iPadel League Final last weekend can be a platform to grow the game at the famous South West London club.
The Londoners dispatched Game4Padel Huddersfield 10-4 in a super tiebreak in the men’s final at We Are Padel in Derby with de Silva and Jack Hazelwood partnering up successfully.
Roehampton won 19 of their 20 ‘London League’ matches to qualify and de Silva hopes this will encourage more players to take up the sport at his club and spur further development of the two-court facility.
He said: “It’s a major national championship so Roehampton are very proud and super pleased to win.
“I love Roehampton and it would be great if we can use this victory to help encourage more people to take up padel at the club but also to think about adding extra courts.
“We have some promising players coming through and I’d love to see them being developed into competitive players while also growing the ladies’ section which also has some fine players in it.
“Hopefully we have done the club proud and this gives us something to build on.”
Craig added: “But I’d also like to thank Ian Colligon at iPadel for organising the event and doing such a great and efficient job and also Rosco Muller at We Are Padel and his staff who made everyone feel really at home.”
De Silva, who took up padel just two years ago, partnered Arthur Olney in Derby. They notched an early victory when a Huddersfield player was forced to scratch midway through the second set due to injury. “That is not the way you want to win any match and I really felt for them,” said De Silva.
The Yorkshiremen hit back when the Roehampton’s No.1 pairing of Bojan Jelovac and Jack Hazelwood lost a decisive champions tiebreak 10-8.
That meant De Silva and Hazlewood faced a super tiebreak for the trophy. “There were certainly nerves ahead of that one,” De Silva admitted. “At the end of Jack and Bojan’s tie I was willing them to win as I just didn’t want to have to go through the super tie-break.
“But as soon as I got on court these nerves turned into pure focus. The nerves had a positive impact on my performance and it was the same for Jack.
“The injury Huddersfield sustained meant that one of their guys was forced to play on the side he didn’t normally play on and he wasn’t as comfortable on that side.
“As team captain I had been thinking about the strategy for a while if it went down to the line and decided to go with our most solid pairing of Jack and I as opposed to going with the flair of Bojan and Arthur.
“Although we didn’t have the time to do a dry run and really prepare for this eventuality we stayed focused, didn’t cough up silly mistakes and got the job done. As a group it was a real team effort and we are all delighted.”
The ladies’ and mixed titles were both won by Harbour Club Chelsea. Read our report here.
