Karabardak, Davies & Stacey reign supreme in Sheffield

The British Para National Championships took place in Sheffield over the weekend with 6 Welsh players bringing home 10 medals.

Saturday morning saw the individual classes events take place with our players playing across 5 different classes.

In class 1 the withdrawal of Tom Matthews left 4 time European Champion Rob Davies as Wales only representative in this class and Rob did not disappoint winning all his matches in the round robin to take the gold medal.

The 2nd gold medal of the weekend came in class 9 for Josh Stacey. Stacey took the gold in comfortable fashion not dropping a set throughout the event.

Class 6 saw Paul Karabadak follow a similar path as Stacey by not dropping a set to take the gold medal home. A second medal for Wales in this class came from Jacob Wicks who took the bronze medal after coming back from 2-0 down to beat World Doubles Champion Fliss Pickard 3-2.

It was 5th place for Dan Mead in Class 7 while Grace Williams had a tough start to weekend in class 8 losing out in her group which included multiple Paralympic medalist  Aaron Mackibbin.

The afternoon for Wales started with the standing open junior event which saw Dan Mead progress to the semi final after a 3-2 win against Jaiden Calderia (Class 8) and narrowly missing out 3-2 agains Max Flint (Class 10). Dan met Joseph Fortnum-Adam’s (class 10) in the semi final who was too strong in the day and won 3-0, meaning Dan would settle for the bronze medal.

The afternoon also saw the doubles take place with with Josh Stacey, partnered with Martin Perry (class 6) from Scotland, take the silver medal while Paul Karabadak, partnered with Will Bailey (class 7) from England, to take a bronze medal.

Day 2 saw more medal opportunities for Welsh players in the Open Woman’s Standing event and the Standing Open Banded events.

Band A saw Josh Stacey win his second gold medal of the weekend with a convincing 3-0 win over Ross Wilson (class 8).

In band B Wales took both bronze medals. Grace Williams narrowly missing out on a place in the final losing 3-2 against Ryan Morton (class 8) while Jacob Wicks lost 3-1 to Bailey Page (class 8).

The final medal of the weekend came in the Woman’s Open Standing event where Grace Williams added another bronze to the one she had won earlier in the day.