Tunbridge Wells’ Will Bayley teams up with Martin Perry to add class 14 doubles bronze to class 7 singles title at Slovenia Open

Tunbridge Wells’ Will Bayley followed up his class 7 singles win with doubles bronze at the Slovenia Para Open.

Bayley and Martin Perry joined forces for victories over Michael Azulay and Emil Andersson and then Alejandro Diaz and Seoane Alcaraz to set up a class 14 Semi-Final with France’s World bronze medallists Clement Berthier and Esteban Herrault - however that match proved a step too far.

A good start to the last-four clash saw Bayley and Perry open up a 7-2 lead but they couldn’t hold on and lost the opener 11-8.

A 12-10 win levelled matters in set two, and the duo restored parity a second time at 2-2 but that was as good as it got for them, their hopes of making the Final dashed with an 11-6 defeat in the fifth set - although they saved three match points before their resistance was broken.

Despite the defeat Bayley preferred to focus on the positives.

He said: “Once we get momentum and get on top of teams, I feel that we are quite hard to beat because we put teams under a lot of pressure and keep getting the ball on.

“I just felt we were so close to having the momentum in that match, so it is frustrating but, overall, it was very good and there are a lot of positives to take from this.

“I think we are a good doubles pair and I was surprised how well we were moving - how much time I felt we had on the ball - so that is a real positive.”

Bayley and Perry showed good powers of recovery against both Azulay and Andersson and Diaz and Alcaraz. Having taken just six points in the first two sets against the former, they turned the match around in spectacular fashion, taking the final three 11-2, 11-7, 11-6.

Against the Spaniards, after dropping the first set they fought back to lead 2-1 and clinched their last-four