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The Channel Island’s Men’s Padel team have won the inaugural Over 40s County Championships in nail-biting fashion.
The team with players from Guernsey and Jersey, dominated the group stages in Bristol, winning their three ties against Wawickshire, Avon and Kent by 2-0.
In the semi finals they met Gloucestershire where they eased through with another 2-0 win.
In the final, they met strong opposition in Yorkshire who had reached the finals in all three categories - the Men's, Ladies' and Mixed events.
As with all the ties, the final consisted of two matches featuring nominated pairs from each county.
Jersey's Bero Bobus and Jon Southern played as our number one pair, beating Yorkshire 7-6, 3-6, 10-4.
Pictured: Phil Radford and Matt De La Mare after a win over Warwickshire.
In the next match, the Yorkshire second pair beat Guernsey's Matt De La Mare and Jersey's Ian Furness 6-2, 6-3.
This forced a nail-biting shootout for the title.
The shootout is played over one Champions Tiebreak - first to ten points, and each team must nominate one player from each of the two rubbers to create the pairs for the shootout.
The Channel Islands put forward De La Mare and Southern for the final push.
In an exceptionally exciting and tight tiebreak, the Channel Islands eventually prevailed 10-8 to lift the trophy and become the County Champions.
Pictured: The Channel Islands team, l-r, Ian Furness, Phil Radford, Clare Clarke, Jon Southern, Sara Woolland, Tania Hunt, Michelle De Villiers, Bero Bobus, Emma Devenport, Matt De La Mare, Sonia Smith.
In the Mixed Doubles event, the Channel Islands topped their group, winning all their matches without dropping a rubber.
In the semi-finals they faced tough opposition from Surrey, and heartbreakingly lost in another shootout, 14-12 having had three match points.
The ladies team were drawn into a groups with Suffolk, Sussex, Somerset and Essex.
Pictured: Clare Clark and Emma Devenport celebrate a win.
With Sussex and Essex both fielding strong teams containing topped ranked ladies, it was always going to be hard to make it through to the semi-finals despite valiant efforts.
Bero Bobus
Matt De La Mare (Captain)
Ian Furness
Phil Radford
Jon Southern
Clare Clark
Emma Devenport (Captain)
Michelle De Villiers
Tania Hunt
Sonia Smith
Sara Woolland
Pictured top: Winning Men’s Over 40s Team, l-r Ian Furness, Jon Southern, Bero Bobus, Matt De La Mare, Phil Radford.
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