KentOnline

bannermobile

News

Sport

Business

What's On

Advertise

Contact

Other KM sites

CORONAVIRUS WATCH KMTV LIVE SIGN UP TO OUR NEWSLETTERS LISTEN TO OUR PODCASTS LISTEN TO KMFM
SUBSCRIBE AND SAVE
Sport

Will Bayley clinches gold for GB in the men’s class 7 team event at the Slovenia Open

By: KentOnline reporter multimediadesk@thekmgroup.co.uk

Published: 00:00, 15 May 2015

Will Bayley Picture: John Walton/PA Wire

Tunbridge Wells’ table tennis world champion Will Bayley has won another title.

The Paralympian and his young GB team-mate, Billy Shilton, 16, won the men’s class 7 team event at the Slovenia Open after beating world champions Spain 3-1 in the final.

With GB leading the match 2-1, Bayley, the class 7 world champion, clinched gold after a five-set win against the world No.4 Jordi Morales.

Bayley had to hold his nerve to win the final set 11-7, the match 3-2 and the tie for GB.

mpu1

He said: “I just thought I’ve got to fight for every single ball because he (Morales) is going to play a lot of balls on the table and I just thought I’ve got to try and get one more ball back than he does.

“It means a lot to beat the world champions and shows we’ve got a world class team."

In the singles, Bayley beat reigning European champion Mykhaylo Popov in the
semi-finals to set up a final against the world No.1 Maksym Nikolenko in a repeat of their World Championship final last September.

After dropping the first set, Bayley played brilliantly to take the next two but the Ukrainian fought back and after winning a close fourth set, he went on to take the fifth and the match 11-4.

More by this author

sticky

© KM Group - 2024