Liam Pitchford & Paul Drinkhall won their eighth men’s doubles title as a pair at the Mark Bates Ltd National Championships, beating Tom Jarvis & David McBeath in a close five-game match. 

In the women’s doubles, Tin-Tin Ho & Emily Bolton secured the title, beating sibling pair Erin & Anna Green. 

Photos by Alan Man – see more on our Flickr page

Click here to see all results from the Championships

Click here to read about the Mixed Doubles

Pitchford & Drinkhall had both lost in the semi-finals of the men’s singles, so were determined to not go home empty-handed. 

They got off to an excellent start, winning the first two games 11-7, 12-10. However Jarvis & McBeath got back into the game, racing to take the third 11-6 and the fourth 11-8. But the top seeds, who rank inside the top 10 in the world, showed why they have so many titles to their name and took the decider 11-7. 

After the match, Drinkhall said: “I think we can win everything. On our day we know we can beat any pair in the world.” 

McBeath said: “We did very well. We had only played doubles once together before this. We know each other well and we communicated well.” 

Jarvis said: “We did our best to come back at the end.”  

Ho & Bolton used all of their experience to win comfortably in straight games, 11-1, 11-5, 11-8. It was great experience for the Green sisters, who will look to build on this in future events. 

Bolton won her second title, after winning the gold in 2020 with Denise Payet. 

After the match, Ho said: “Me and Emily play well together. We played when we were quite young as well so we’re quite comfortable with each other.”  

Bolton said: “Every gold medal is obviously nice, but to do it with a friend is even better.” 

Anna said: “I’m happy to be here, it’s something I’ve never done before, playiung in front of all these people. It’s a nice experience to have.” 

Erin said: “We each our games very well. We’re good at supporting each other mentally out there.”