[4] Joel Makin (WAL) 3-0 Declan James (ENG) 11-7, 11-9, 11-6 (60m)
You cannot NOT be impressed by Declan today.
He was put through the mill and not only he never said die but he pushed and managed to find some energy to take the game to Joel. Incredible that as Joel was having a sadistic pleasure (kidding) in keeping the rallies going, longer and longer, forcing the Englishman to play windscreen wipers…
First game alone of 18m, and when Declan looked out of the second, 7/2, 8/4, he clawed back to 7/9, and saved two game balls finally losing the game 11/9. Very close that… 21m game…
And in the third game, Declan was runing on the fumes of the fumes, the legs must have been hurting like heck – I left it all out there he admitted at the end – but he still pushed hard from 6/2 to 4/6, and produced some lovely rallies, even if the writing was on the wall.
As Joel said, only 5 decisions the whole match. Merci, messieurs. Thank you, gentlemen.
That's a lovely boast by Dec James 💪
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Declan : I thought I played pretty well. It was a good game, it was free flowing, not many decisions.
I didn’t get in front of him, he spent too much time in front of me on the volley, pushing me side to side, and that’s what I want to try and do to him in front, but he did it better. He has that extra 5%, 10% in front of me.
So a bit disappointing I didn’t get a game, or two games. It was good squash, it was better than the start of the season, but obviously, there is still work to do.
I was trying my hardest today, I left it all out there. I think it’s more matches like that that I maybe didn’t have enough, big matches with those top 10 players.
It’s a different story playing, with all due respect, to the guys a bit lower down, because they can beat you but you are not getting under the kind of pressure those guys are putting you under. I just need to be exposed to that pressure week in week out, in these kind of matches, so there is positive to take, my game is in a good place, but I have to go and find a little bit more.
Joel : “He’s a top player, I know his big strength areas so I had to take him out of there, but he switched it and adapted, that’s a sign of a good player, so he kept me unsettled. Every time I got a lead, I thought I’d hurt him, but he came back. He’s got a lot of skills to him, he’s a tough old boy. But I enjoyed it.
“We’ve played each other 3/4 times this season and it’s annoying that I’ve got to be the one who takes him out because I think he can definitely make a good run at these big events but yeah I’m sure he’ll get the chance to do that soon. The match was free flowing, the guy is 6ft 5 and there was no more than 5 decisions in the whole match so that makes it enjoyable and what we all want to see.”
