GB Take Team Gold To Mark World University Championships Treble

Hosts Great Britain rounded off their 2018 FISU World University Squash Championships campaign with success in the Team event to complete a maximum triple gold-medal haul in the English city of Birmingham.

Victory for Great Britain over defending champions Malaysia in the final of the team event at the University of Birmingham came three days after individual successes by home players Joshua Masters and Lily Taylor.

And by way of fittingly neat symmetry, the newly-crowned men's and women's champions - who are also fellow students at the University of the West of England in Bristol - gained the two necessary match-wins to ensure gold for their team.

The Malaysian side, who had also won the event on home soil in Kuala Lumpur two years ago, featured three individual bronze medallists in its Final team - although Mohd Syafiq Kamal and Aika Azman had been beaten in their respective men's and women's semi-finals by Masters and Taylor.

For the second time, the two pairs lined up each other again - and, happily for Team GB, the recent history was to repeat itself.

In the opening match 23-year-old Masters beat his Malaysian opponent 11-5, 11-8, 11-6 - after which Taylor clinched victory for GB (negating the need for a third match) by overcoming Azman 11-6, 11-8, 9-11, 11-8.

A delighted Great Britain coach Josh Taylor said: "I'm immensely proud of the team this week, there were great performances from everyone. It was truly a team effort in the team event, having rotated the whole squad and claimed gold.

"It wraps up a great week and the best performance by any nation at this event, taking GB to the top of the all-time medal table."

Team Malaysia were generous in defeat, commenting: "We expected it to be hard for us, as they (Masters and Taylor) had both won their matches against us in the individual champs. We just tried to play our best squash, but they played much better than us today - big credit to them!

"It's been a great week for us. The University of Birmingham has one of the best facilities in the world, so it's been really good!"

The next FISU 2020 World University Squash Championship will be held in Shanghai.