World doubles table tennis champion Billy Shilton took gold in the men’s class 8 singles at the ITTF World Para Future Lahti in Finland.
Stonehouse- based Shilton won 3-0 against 16-year-old Tomas Novotny from Czechia and then beat the European Paralympic Youth Games silver medallist from Italy Leonardo Coletta 3-0.
He secured his place in the quarterfinals as group winner with a 3-0 win against Irish teenager Jude Sheldon and after edging a tight first set against Paul Van Der Oord 14-12 went on to beat the Dutchman 3-0. A 3-0 win against Marcin Zielinski, the European Paralympic Youth Games doubles champion from Poland took him through to the final where he faced world number 13 Emil Andersson, the European silver medallist and former Paralympic bronze medallist from Sweden. Shilton had won their most recent meeting in five sets and he started well, taking the first set 11-8 and then took the second 11-9 after a good timeout call from coach David McBeath at 10-8. Andersson fought back to lead 10-7 in the third, but Shilton levelled at 10-10 and after saving another set point, he clinched the set 13-11 and the match 3-0.
“I’m obviously really happy to take the gold without dropping a set, it’s a good feeling,” said Shilton. “I’ve felt really good in training over the last few weeks, and I think that showed today which is not easy to do so I’m really happy with that. The second set (in the final) was huge – I think I was 10-4 up and he started to change a few things and played really smart and it was a really good call from Dave to call a timeout. This gives me a lot of confidence going into the next tournament in France and the World Championships that I can show this level so I’m really happy and on to the next one now.”
