Australia just finished 3rd at the World Team Champs held in Odense, Denmark last week. Seeded 4th at the start of the event, we managed to better our seeding again (2007 - seeded 4, finished 2nd) after defeating England in the 3rd/4th playoff. Egypt won the event to claim the title for the 2nd time. Their team consisted of 3 of the world's top 4 players, not a bad line up really.
Our team consisted of David Palmer (World rank 6), Stewart Boswell (16) myself (17) and Aaron Frankcomb (39). We finished 1st in our pool by defeating Wales and The Netherlands. We had a close call against the Dutch but managed to pull through. In the round of 16 we beat Ireland with relative ease then dominated Pakistan in the Quarter finals. In the semis we faced the No.1 seeds Egypt. Two years ago in the same event we caused a major upset by beating them 2-1 so we knew we were capable of another upset this time. I was up first for Australia against current World Champ Ramy Ashour. Ramy took the first after I had 2 game balls then I squared it up taking the 2nd. He killed me in the 3rd with some ridiculous squash and he got the 4th 11-9 in a tight game. Next up was Palmer against Current World No.1 Karim Darwish. It was a great game of squash which had everything. Dave is the most passionate player I have seen play for his country. Up until this event, Palmer had never lost a match in the World Team Championships. An awesome record. In a gruelling match Darwish came out on top with a tough 3-1 win.
We got back to our hotel after our semi at 12:30am with the 3/4 playoff scheduled for 10:30am. Interesting. Everyone involved with the Aussie team knows what it means to play for our country and how important every single match is. After such a dissappointment in losing to Egypt, there was no way in the world we would roll over easily for a 3rd/4th playoff - especially to England! Palmer - feeling the effects of his match about 12 hours earlier - put up a strong fight against Willstrop but went down 3-1. I managed to steady the ship with a big 5 set win against Ali Walker. We always seem to go the distance. It came down to Bozza against Pete Barker. The big Bozman came through with the goods to win it for Australia and it felt like we had just won the tournament!
All the boys were stoked and it was such a good team spirit during the whole week. Rod Eyles brought an incredible amount of experience to the table and it was great to have him involved with the team. He has been there and done it so many times before he can easily relate to how the players are feeling and what they're going through. I hope he is involved for many years to come.
Next event is the Hong Kong Open next week.
