In 2021 & 2023, Leon Griffiths won through to the World Championships final. But for the first time, Leon Griffiths is a singles World Champion. The final involved many momentum swings, but Leon was ultimately victorious by 5 points. Here’s how it happened.
The lead up
Defending Champion, Luke Griffiths, had tough matches and was pushed to tennis in every single match. These included a 6-point win in the quarter final against 6-time World Champion Jesper Ratzer and an 8-point win in the semi final against Koen Hageraats.
On the contrary, Leon Griffiths, had won his matches with relative ease, even against top 10 players, Joerg Kanonenberg & Nicolas Lenggenhager. Only compatriot Matthew Davidson forced Leon to play tennis.
Would the battle-hardened player win, or the one with the fresher legs?
Table Tennis
From the outset, Luke was audibly trying to fire himself up, whereas Leon’s style was more introverted. Both players were moving each other about with topspin exchanges. The score stayed relatively equal in the first half, with Leon taking a lead of two points into the change of ends.
In the second half, the World Number 1 opened up a 4-point lead, which he was able to maintain, despite challenges from the younger brother. Leon gave a silent fist pump as he won the set 21-17.
Badminton
The older brother got off to a flying start in the badminton and Luke’s first two points were won from net cords! A couple of uncharacteristic service faults from the defending champion allowed Leon to extend his lead and take a seat at 11-4 up.
His dominance continued into the second half of the set, until a mammoth rally on 14-6. It was won by Leon, but more importantly, who would recover better both physically and mentally?
The younger brother started to build momentum, before another service fault. From 17-9, it appeared that Leon would take a big lead into the final two sports. But then something quite crazy happened!
The defending champion found some composure and lifted the intensity of the game to win 7 points in a row. Leon appeared to have regained control to lead 19-16, but the World Number 5 reeled off 5 more points in a row, to complete an insane comeback. 21-19.
Before the players were even at the net to shake hands, the crowd started sprinting to get the best seat for the squash!
We caught up with Leon Griffiths after the game to ask how he dealt with the swing of momentum against him:
“I think before the match I’d have taken 19 points. I know Luke’s played a lot of badminton this summer, a lot more than I have, but I knew I’d played a lot more squash than him, so the fact I was leading going into squash I was quite happy about.
“Obviously it’s frustrating to have been leading and then lose the badminton, but that’s the nature of racketlon, he’s a good player, it happens sometimes. As soon as that game is done you have to move on.”
That last sentence providing a little insight into why he’s been so successful in racketlon.
Squash
The 3-time World Champion started the squash set stronger, carrying his momentum from the badminton. But before long, both players had settled in for some long, gruelling rallies.
If you get a chance, check out the rally on 4-3 in the squash set, at roughly 4:55:00 on “Main Channel – Afternoon Session” on Streamster. It’s a beauty!
The taxing rallies continued and Leon opened up a 7-4 lead. Then, once again, the momentum swung the other way. The younger brother produced some brilliant shots, that really impressed the livestream commentators. When Luke hit a straight nick on return of serve, Ross Wilson announced, “That one will end up on his Instagram story!”
Luke completed a run of 6 points in a row, to lead the squash 10-7 and also take a lead in the racketlon match for the first time since 9-7 in the table tennis.
There was another massive rally on 10-7, but this time Leon responded better and picked up the last four points to take an 11-10 lead into the break.
The brothers continued to push each other to all four corners of the court. Perhaps the only difference was that Luke was looking to end the rallies, whereas Leon was happy to lob from the front corners, to get himself out of trouble.
The World Number 1’s patience paid dividends and he won the set 21-15, meaning he needed 14 points in tennis to become a World Champion for the first time.
Tennis
Needing to restrict his brother to 12 points or less, Luke would need a strong start. Winning 6 points in a row to take a 7-2 lead was exactly what he would have wanted. Generally Luke’s depth was superior to Leon’s in the first half and the defending champion led 11-6 at the change of ends.
The second half saw greater depth from the older brother and he won 4 points in a row, to almost eliminate any advantage Luke had.
Leon brought up his first Championship point on 13-15, but pulled his backhand wide. A long backhand crosscourt exchange on the second opportunity. Luke eventually left one of his groundstrokes short, which invited his brother into the net, where he finished the match with a backhand winner down the line.
Luke Griffiths refused a hand shake at the net, instead giving his older brother a hug to congratulate him!
“I’ve been playing this sport for so long… when we started we were under 13 juniors, back in 2012. It’s been a long journey to get here, so I’m glad I finally did it,” explained Leon Griffiths.
“There’s been a few times where I’ve come close… it just never seemed to go my way, so luckily, this one did… so [I’m] really relieved about that.”
Asked about his goals for the rest of the season, the new World Champion said, “Probably take a little break from it, the next month or so, work on the golf swing. And then… there’s a few tournaments in Czech and India that I quite fancy, so hopefully I’ll be there.”
Koen Hageraats defeated Joerg Kanonenberg by 10 points to win the bronze medal.
View the results: Men’s Singles
Coming soon: World Teams Championships review
