Billings and Owen retain Rackets World Doubles Championship
Cawston and Hopton fail to win a game on second leg of challenge
Tom Billings and Richard Owen have retained their Rackets World Championship Doubles title, earning the single game needed to defeat challengers Ben Cawston and Will Hopton in the second leg at the Queen’s Club on Saturday.
The defending champions won four games without reply in the first leg on Wednesday evening. The format of the championship meant that Cawston and Hopton needed to win on Saturday by four games to zero, as well as ensuring a winning overall point aggregate. For Billings and Owen, winning a single game would suffice in order to retain their title.
Billings and Owen won the toss, with Owen taking the first serve but was immediately put out by Cawston. The challengers got a small run going early, with Hopton playing the forehand and Cawston the backhand — Hopton playing a slightly more active role than Wednesday. But by the time Owen returned to the box, he had a monster run of serves. Exhibiting great variety in angles and spin, he powered through five excellent serves to bring up a lead. The run was broken by a ball narrowly clipping the top of the board. Once Cawston and Hopton recovered the serve, they once again played out a series of exhilarating rallies. Cawston was a beast on the backhand while Hopton was stepping up higher on the forehand, putting Billings and Owen on the backfoot and benefiting from a few miscommunication errors.
Cawston’s run was finally ended at 10/7 courtesy of the ball hitting the door handle. Through the game, Billings was struggling to find points on his own service, but Owen was performing more than well enough to compensate. The rallies were getting longer and longer, with the ball being hit harder and harder. Cawston and Hopton were put straight out at 11-all, before Owen found a couple of shots to beat Hopton’s forehand deep into the court. They took the championship at the first opportunity with a ball jamming Hopton on the side wall.
The players agreed to play an extra exhibition game, which was won by Billings and Owen 15/13.
Match results:
Wednesday 6:30 PM (First Leg): Tom Billings & Richard Owen def Ben Cawston & Will Hopton 15/11 15/6 15/1 15/9
Saturday 11:00 AM (Second Leg): Tom Billings & Richard Owen def Ben Cawston & Will Hopton 15/11