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The Channel Island's men's padel team are celebrating success after winning the inaugural Over-40s County Championships.
The team of five, made up of players from Jersey and Guernsey, returned victorious from Bristol this weekend after facing teams from across the UK in a first-of-its-kind over 40s mixed category tournament.
Pictured: The CI padel players entered the Men's, Women's and Mixed Doubles events
After dominating in their group stages, winning against Wawickshire, Avon and Kent by 2-0, the CI team then faced Gloucestershire in the semi final, smashing their opponents again by two rubbers to love.
In the final, they met a strong Yorkshire squad and Jersey's Bero Bobus and Jon Southern played first, beating Yorkshire 7-6, 3-6, 10-4. In the second match the Yorkshire side then beat Guernsey’s Matt De La Mare and Jersey’s Ian Furness 6-2, 6-3.
This left a nail-biting shootout for the title. In padel tennis, the shootout is played over one Champions Tiebreak - first to 10 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 Guernsey’s Matt De La Mare and Jersey’s Jon Southern for the final push, eventually prevailing 10-8 to lift the trophy and become County Champions.
Pictured: The winning men's team took home the inaugural Over 40s County Championship trophy (L-R - Ian Furness, Jon Southern, Bero Bobus, Matt De La Mare, Phil Radford)
In the Mixed Doubles event, the Channel Islands easily 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' CI team were drawn with Suffolk, Sussex, Somerset and Essex. With Sussex and Essex both fielding strong teams, they missed out on the semi-finals.
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