World No. 1 Will Bayley won his third consecutive singles gold medal in winning the Herenklasse 7 singles at the ITTF World Para Future Spokane Tournament in Washington State, vs.
The world and European champion (shown above) had to show all his characteristic mind and determination to preserve his undefeated record in 2025 and again proved that he is the ultimate competitor.
Bayley recovered from a slow start to beat the American Mathew Weber 3-1 and caused the top in his group and a bye in the quarterfinals by beating Christian Scheiber of Austria 3-0.
He lost a sleek first set of Israel Stroh 12-10, but continued to beat the Rio 2016 Paralympic silver medal winner from Brazil with 3-1 and then came through a difficult semifinal against the improvement of Sam Gustafsson, golden medal winner in the Lahti in Finland, earlier this year, with his earlier, this year, year-year-old, year, year, year, year, year, year, year, year, year, year, year, year, year, year, year, year, year, year, year, year, year, year, year, year, year, year, year, year, year, year, year, year. power of the 21-year-old from Sweden.
That brought him to the final where he came across the talented teenager Krizander Magnussen. The couple gathered in Slovenia in May when Bayley won in three sets, but gold medals in Spain and Poland have seen 18-year-old Norwegian in the current world ranking rise to no 4.
Bayley took the first set 11-9 but Magnussen ran 1-1 and on 6-3 in the third seemed to have the momentum after a series of spectacular Forehand winners. A time-out stabiled the ship and after a tight third set 13-11, a fired Bayley raced through the fourth set 11-1 to win the game 3-1 and take the gold.
“I feel that he played very well,” said Bayley, “he has so much quality and he improves very quickly. I just tried to dig deep, and it was more a mental struggle to stay in the game. I have to improve a lot for the next tournament – I just want to take the energy that I had towards the end of my competitions, but this time for the whole competition.”
In Herenklasse 2 Chris Ryan won his opening match 3-0 against the American Gabriel Diaz de Leon and then lost 3-1, 12-10 in the fourth, of the world No. 7 and two-time former paralympic champion Jan Riaps from Slowakia. He progressed to the knockout phase with a 3-0 win against the Canadian Peter Isherwood and started well in his quarterfinals, taking the first set 11-1 against World No 5 Luis Flores before the Para Panamerican champion from Chile returned to win 3-1.
Bayley and Ryan are part of a 15-member British team that will participate in the ITTF World Para Elite Spokane tournament that starts on Saturday.
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