Declan James and Nardine Garas have won the London Open 2024, beating Simon Herbert and Millie Tomlinson in the respective finals at Cumberland Lawn Tennis Club in the English capital.
James was competing in his third Copper final of the season, while Herbert was hoping to go one better than 12 months ago, when he finished as runner-up to Adrian Waller in the 2023 edition of this event.
The 23-year-old had also beaten James in their last Tour meeting, albeit coming at last year’s QSF 5 in Qatar, when James had only recently returned from a serious achilles injury.
But since the start of this season, the 31-year-old has been one of the most in-form players on Tour, reaching two Copper event finals already and winning a Challenger 15 tournament in Austria.
He had fallen short in both of those previous two Copper events, but made a dominant start to this encounter with Herbert, displaying a mixture of extremely consistent squash and some impressive movements on his way to a 2-0 lead.
Herbert, though, came firing back, showcasing some of the eye-catching shotmaking we saw in abundance in his semi-final win over Nick Wall, racing out to a 5-0 lead in game three, holding James at bay to take it 11-6.
He then took game four 11-8, not trailing once in the game, and momentum appeared to be on his side as the players headed off court.
James was also appearing in his eighth match in the last 10 days, so could have been forgiven if he’d run out of steam, but instead he continued to move around the court efficiently, rediscovering his length and accuracy in game five to quickly establish a 7-2 lead.
7-2 soon became six match balls at 10-4 and he didn’t have to wait long for glory, as Herbert went for the nick off the serve return, crashing the ball into the tin to hand James his 17th PSA Squash Tour title, and make it third time lucky in Copper finals.
“It plays on your mind a little bit, when you’ve had a few of those finals,” he said after collecting his silverware.
“You want to get across the line in one but I played pretty well in the last two finals and I came up against guys that were better on the day.
“I’ve played a hell of a lot of squash in the last couple of weeks and I was relieved to get over the line today.
“I thought I played really well in the first two, to go 2-0 up, and then he always has so much danger and so much threat, and he came back very well in the third and the fourth, but I just wanted to keep putting work in as much as I can.
“I was having to dig deep, but I can do that time and again. I knew in the fifth that I had another dig in me so it was really about just making it as physical as I could towards the end there, so I’m super happy to get a title this week.”
James’ win followed victory for Egypt’s Garas in the women’s final – a Challenger 15 event – earlier in the day.
Garas was taking on England’s Millie Tomlinson, who won this even back in 2015 and who had come through a dramatic five-game encounter with another Egyptian, Hana Ismail, in the semi-finals.
Garas, meanwhile, had beaten the unseeded Kiera Marshall 3-1 in her semi-finals, and was targeting a fourth title of 2024.
She started in impressive fashion, too, crunching the ball to the corners with ferocious power whenever the opportunity presented itself, taking game one 11-7 in just under eight minutes.
She then took game two in less than six minutes, converting a 6-1 lead into 11-5, and despite losing three of the first four points in game three, she was soon on the brink of glory at 8-3 up.
Tomlinson kept fighting until the end, perhaps setting some nerves jangling in the opposing corner as she moved from 9-4 down to 10-8 down, but she was unable to overhaul Garas’ lead, with the Egyptian sending her the wrong way with a another hard-hit backhand down the line, clenching her first in celebration.
Result: Men’s Final
[5] Declan James (ENG) bt. [7] Simon Herbert (ENG) 3-2: 11-3, 11-7, 6-11, 8-11, 11-4 (62m)
Result: Women’s Final
[3] Nardine Garas (EGY) bt. [2] Millie Tomlinson (ENG) 3-0: 11-7, 11-5, 11-8 (24m)