Moycullen's Martin Mulkerrins has claimed handball's Pro Players' Championship crown in the United States after overcoming defending champion Killian Carrol from Boston.
The play began early Friday morning and by Sunday morning, some five rounds later, Mulkerrins thad taken the title, defeating the number one seed.
The Moycullen man had blitzed his way to the semi-finals where he dispatched the number two seed, Mexican Luis Cordova, by 16-14, 15-6. However, the final was a titanic contest, one hour and 35 minutes in which both players displayed the best of the sport, with spinning power serves, flat roll-out kills and remarkable retrieves.
Carol, who has been playing out of Boston since 2015, was seeking his fifth consecutive R48 Player’s Championship, in addition to a perfect R48 season that saw him win all five events he entered coming into Salt Lake City. Mulkerrins, having narrowly lost in a tiebreaker to Caroll in Tuscon last December, was looking to settle that score, seeking his second R48 title and first Player’s Championship.
Mulkerrins set the pace early in the first game, attacking Carroll en route to a 7-0 lead. Carroll has erased deficits on many occasions and at 9-8 appeared poised to climb back into the first game. Yet Mulkerrins would not concede his advantage, maintaining his lead and thwarting Carroll’s surges to take a one game lead, 15-8.
The Moycullen ace continued to apply pressure in game two, never allowing his opponent into a rhythm. Four points from the championship, and serving at 11-8 in game two, a missed right-hand kill stalled his momentum. Although he served four more times in game two, he could not score the twelfth point as Carroll scored seven unanswered points to tie the match at one game apiece.
However, Mulkerrins did not allow the second game deter him, and from the opening serve of the tiebreaker, he raced into a 5-0 lead, then 10-2. There was no miraculous comeback from Carroll. The Galway man controlled the tiebreak from start to finish, ending Carroll’s 29-match, seven tournament R48 win streak and collecting the WPH’s biggest prize, the Players' Championship title. The final scoreline 15-8, 11-15, 15-4.
