Joshua Stacey & Aaron McKibbin beat the reigning world and European champions to take gold in the men’s class 18 doubles at the ITTF World Para Challenger Lignano in Italy today and Paralympic legend Neil Robinson marked his return to international competition by taking bronze with Megan Shackleton in the mixed class 7 doubles. 

Men’s Class 18

Joshua Stacey & Aaron McKibbin (pictured above) started their tournament strongly, beating the current world ranked No 2 pair of Ander Cepas & Juan Bautista Perez from Spain 3-1. The GB pair led 2-0 and after Cepas & Perez responded by winning the third set 11-5 Stacey & McKibbin saved two set points in the fourth before edging it 12-10. They won their final group match against the strong Brazilian pair Lucas dos Santos Carvalho & Joao Pedro Ribeiro Possas 3-1 and received a bye into the semi-final after winning their group.

Stacey & McKibbin recovered from losing the first set against Alejandro Diaz & Marlon Lopez to beat the Spanish pair 3-1 which took them through to the final to face reigning world and European champions Lev Kats & Ivan Mai from Ukraine. Stacey & McKibbin won the first two sets before the strong Ukrainian duo fought back, levelling the contest at 2-2. The GB pair found themselves 6-3 down but a timeout worked well as they fought back to 6-6 and took the set 11-9 and the match 3-2 to secure the gold.

“We both played really well in that final match,” said McKibbin. “They’re such a good team – they won the Europeans last year pretty convincingly, and I think even in the sets we lost, we were playing in the right way. We’ve had really good communication this whole tournament, and I think that was the key difference. We stuck to the gameplan, whether we were winning or losing and just found a way to win at the end.”

“The process was simple, we just needed to be good with the basics,” said Stacey. “We wanted to keep our game really simple and only play difficult balls when they were needed. I think we were very solid and that helped us throughout the whole tournament, and we just can’t wait to keep going this year.”

Mixed Class 7

Neil Robinson & Megan Shackleton won their opening group match against Tomislav Spalj & Andela Muzinic Vincetic from Croatia 3-1, despite losing the first set 11-3. They found themselves 2-1 down in their next group match against Argentinian pair Elias Romero & Coty Garrone and although they fought back to take the fourth set 11-4, they lost the final set and the match 3-2.  

With all three teams winning one match, Robinson & Shackleton topped their group on countback and received a bye into the semi-finals, where they faced Welder Camargo Knaf & Marliane Amaral Santos of Brazil. The pair again fought back from 2-1 down to force a deciding set and established a 6-2 lead before the Brazilian pair fought back to take it 11-6 and the match 3-2.

“I think we’ve had a good first tournament together,” said Shackleton. “We’ve only just really started to work together, and we’re just trying to find our feet and what playing together will look like for us. There is definitely a lot of promise going forward and we’ll use this tournament as a base to work from. We know we need to work on our familiarity with each other’s game, but we’ve got a really solid foundation.”

“Although we’re disappointed we didn’t get through to the final, we’re really happy with how we’ve played,” said Robinson. “We’ve formed a really good basis for a partnership; we complement each other very well, and I look forward to working with Megan going into future tournaments. Being in this pressure environment is a lot different to the practice hall, but we coped really well together.”

Men’s Class 4

Chris Ryan & Thomas Matthews’ lost their opening match against the tough South Korean pair Baek Youngbok & Joo Young Dae 3-1. They led 2-1 against Federico Crosara & Federico Falco but the Italian pair came back to win 3-2. Ryan & Matthews did not progress after losing their final group match against France’s Francois Geuljans & Alan Papirer 3-2, having led 2-0.

Men’s Class 8

Jack Hunter-Spivey & Neil Robinson lost their opening match 3-1 to the world ranked No 5 pair Krzysztof Zylka & Maciej Nalepka from Poland having edged a tight first set 12-10. The GB pair were then beaten 3-0 in their final group match by the very experienced Mitar Palikuca & Mladen Ciric, the European bronze medallists from Serbia.