Radley College's rackets professional Mark Hubbard is on top of the world after he and his American partner Neil Smith won the Lacoste World Doubles Championship Hubbard, the British Professional champion, and former world champion Smith caused a major upset when they defeated the favourites, world singles champion Harry Foster and Mark Hue Williams in a two-legged final It was a first world crown for Hubbard, 32, who coaches tennis as well as rackets at Radley, where he has produced a string of schoolboy champions.
The pair went into the deciding leg at Queen's Club needing just one more game to take the title, after a stunning 4-0 first leg victory in New York They started confidently and led 11-5 only to be pegged back by brilliant retrieving from their opponents who then led 16-14 in the first-to-18 point game.
Despite spirited opposition from the amateurs,, however, Hubbard's fluent stroke-making and fine serving from Smith, 44, proved decisive.
"Mark played superbly, with hardly an unforced error," said former world champion John Prenn of Lacoste, the game's major sponsor. He and Neil are an outstanding team."
The doubles championship was inaugurated in the 1990s, and Hubbard and Smith already look capable of retaining their title for years to come.
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