Tin-Tin Ho & Emily Bolton retained their Women’s Doubles title with a tightly contested five-game win over Jasmin Wong & Mari Baldwin on Finals Day at the Mark Bates Ltd National Championships. 

Photos by Alan Man

The second seeds made the first move, catching Ho & Bolton cold in winning the first game 11-6. But the top seeds came back to win the second game 11-9.

Wong & Baldwin were not prepared to go down without a fight, opening up a 10-6 lead in the third game and holding their nerve to win it 12-10 after those four initial game points had been saved.

With Ho & Bolton facing the reality of being just one game away from losing their title, they found their form and never gave Wong & Baldwin a sniff of overturning the seedings as they took the next two 11-8, 11-6.  

Paul Drinkhall & Sam Walker won the Men’s Doubles title with a four-game in over Finals Day debutants Larry Trumpauskas & Joseph Hunter. 

There were some nerves early on – Hunter started by serving the first point into the net – and they struggled to stem the flow of points early on, but the young duo grew into the game and got their reward as they won the third 11-7 and the fairytale beckoned – though only fleetingly as the senior duo accelerated away in the second half of game four, winning it 11-5.

For Drinkhall, victory with a fifth different partner in this event over the years, and for Walker a second title, having won with Tom Jarvis two years ago,

Trumpauskas & Hunter can be proud of their run, and can only benefit from their first Finals Day experience, even if outgunned by their experienced opponents on this occasion.