IT was a case of redemption day for Team GB at the World Padel Championships as John Leach’s side claimed two victories within three hours of each other to send them into tomorrow’s final round of play off fixtures with their tails most definitely up.
The head coach must be delighted with his side’s professionalism after the Great Britain bounced back from their Group A World Championship disappointment to produce a real case of good old British indefatigability when it was most needed.
It was never going to be easy for GB after they were drawn against World Champions Spain, tournament dark horses Portugal and the 2021 quarter-finalists Uruguay.
Indeed in the three pool ties in ‘The Group of Death’ the British only managed a solitary success which came courtesy of Christian Murphy and Sam Jones victory against Uruguay.
All of which meant that as they battled for the best placing available in 13-17 bracket, the matches against UAE and Qatar were massive banana skins for a team whose pride had been battered after the gulf between the British and the game’s elite was exposed.
But there were to be no slip-ups and with successive 3-0 successes Leach can at last sleep easy as he looks forward to the final round of fixtures tomorrow.
The former GB international’s mood will have been further lightened by the fact his decision to reverse his order from the pool matches paid spectacular dividends.
Leach had admitted the deployment order was something of a “chess match” when he spoke exclusively to The Padel Paper after the crucial and decisive 2-1 group defeat by Uruguay that consigned his side to the also-rans.
However in a decisive change of strategy where he had deployed the British No.1 pairing of Christian Murphy and Sam Jones in the anchor role for the group games this time Leach flipped his selection coin to send them out to bat first and was duly rewarded.
With the benefit of hindsight it is easy to ask whether Leach would have done it that way in the group games and most specifically against Portugal and Uruguay when both ties had already been lost by the time the British players took to the court.
Yet it is worth remembering that his selection came within a whisker of succeeding when the second pairing of Sandy Farquharson and Nikhil Mohindra had apparently wrestled control of the second rubber against the South Americans, only to squander a lead of 5-3, a break up in the first set, and then a 5-2 advantage in the second set before a disastrous case of déjà vu took hold.
So with crystal balls in short supply in Dubai all of that is open to conjecture and only goes to underline just how tight the margins are at the elite end of world-class padel.
As for the action today, the big talking point was Leach’s deployment of his best players Murphy and Jones first against the UAE in a bid to take control of the first play-off tie from the get-go.
What may have turned out to be madness in the midday sun was a bold call that was duly rewarded after just 43 minutes when they decisively dispatched Al Shamsi Khalid and Alshamsi Mohammad 6-2, 6-1.
44minutes later it was 2-0 and the tie was over after Sandy Farquharson and Nikhil Mohindra thrashed Ahli Abdulla and Alhouli Salem 6-1, 6-1 to claim their first victory of the championships as a pairing.
Yet in the anchor role life was to be anything but easy for Francis Langan who retained his place in favour of Richard Brooks to partner Louie Harris against Ahli Abdulla and Alhouli Salem.
After taking the first set on a single service break 6-4 the Brits found that the opposition grew even stiffer in an epic second stanza that ultimately saw Abdulla and Salem prevail 7-5 on a tie break after 45-minutes of see-saw action.
However, the bit firmly between their teeth, Langan and Harris would not be denied and bounced back to claim the decider again on a single break of serve 6-4 after one-hour 44minutes.
Three hours later Leach’s lads were back on court against Qatar with Murphy and Jones again spearheading British hopes and first on to deliver a dominant performance against Abdulla Mohammed and Al-Khanji Mohammed 6-3, 6-3 in an hour and a minute.
With the restored Brooks back in tandem with Harris the tie was claimed with the minimum of fuss as the GB second pairing despatched Al-Kuwari Abdulaziz and Al-Kuwari Khalid 6-2, 6-1 in 52 minutes with the minimum of fuss.
This left Farquharson and Mohindra to pull down the curtain on an emphatic redemption day with a routine 6-4, 6-3 victory over Al-Hijji Abdulla and Al-Kuwari Mohammed in 58minutes.
All of which nicely sets up GB hopes of a victorious finale tomorrow and a good night’s sleep for the British knowing they will leave the tournament with at least two wins under their belt.
