Jille and Thygesen blow away Birch and van Leeuwen in Scottish Open title-winning final game
Debora Jille and Sara Thygesen produced an incredible deciding game to beat English duo Chloe Birch and Estelle van Leeuwen and claim the Scottish Open Women’s Doubles title.
Jille said: “We’re happy. It was a good match, we lost a bit of focus in the second game but we started the third so well that we were able to continue on the right track.”
The Danes flew out of the block, controlling the rallies throughout against their English opponents, who had already won two BMF tournaments this year.
Birch and van Leeuwen were aiding their opponent’s dominance, however, with continuous unforced errors, giving Jille and Thygesen an 11 to 3 lead at the interval.
Despite a brief recovery from the English pair, their attempts to clear long to the back-court brought more unforced errors, not helped by their opponents dovetailing brilliantly to control all areas of the court.
A disappointing serve from Birch was enough to give Jille and Thygesen a 21 to 14 opening-game win, leaving the English duo knowing that they must cut out their mistakes to give them a chance of clawing back the deficit.
Admirably, Birch and van Leeuwen returned from the break full of intent, with a combination of deep smashes and long drop shots from van Leeuwen saw them race into a 9 to 4 lead. An error from their opponents was enough to earn an 11 to 4 interval lead for the English pair
After the interval, rallies at the net became incredibly profitable for Birch especially, allowing her to display great speed and placement with her smashes to help her team continue to dominate the game at 17 to 7.
Despite a brief comeback from Jille and Thygesen where they won three unanswered points, the English pair’s early work was enough to secure a 21 to 10 win and take the match to a third and deciding game.
Unfortunately for Birch and van Leeuwen, though, they were unable to take any momentum into this final game as a succession of clears beyond the backcourt saw them 10 to 0 down.
A powerful smash from Thygesen down the centre of the court gave her team a dominant 11 to 1 lead at the interval.
Whilst a comeback from this position seemed unlikely, Birch and van Leeuwen did win by far the longest rally of the match to move within ten points of their opponents.
Another second rally success took the score to 14 to 5, leaving the English team requiring perfection to stand a chance. However, their opponents were intent on wrapping up the game quickly, with Thygesen especially opting for repeated smashes to apply pressure.
A Jille smash followed by a van Leeuwen shot into the net was enough to secure the set and the Scottish Open title for Jille and Thygesen, winning 21, 10, 21 to 14, 21, 8.