AFTER landing individual table tennis silver, Billy Shilton and Aaron McKibbin provided the perfect finish for the British team at the ITTF Para Polish Open in Wladyslawowo by taking gold in the men’s class 8 team event, beating the former Paralympic, World and European team champions from Poland in the final.

Stonehouse-based Shilton and McKibbin progressed to the knockout stages with 2-0 wins against Italy/Romania, Hungary and Poland the pair combining to win all three doubles matches and Shilton continuing his great form in the singles competition by winning his singles matches against the Italian Samuel De Chiara, Rio Paralympic silver medallist Andras Csonka from Hungary and Mariusz Olczak from Poland.

In their quarter-final they had to fight hard to win the doubles against Netherlands, coming back from 2-0 down to beat Roy Van Der Burg and Devin Wassink 11-5 in the fifth and Shilton secured the tie with a 3-0 win against Van Der Burg.

Their semi-final opponents were former World champion Richard Csejtey from Slovakia and the Belgian former World number one Marc Ledoux but McKibbin and Shilton won the doubles 3-1 before Shilton avenged his defeat in yesterday’s singles final by Ledoux in style, beating the experienced Belgian 7, 6 and 2.

In the final against Marcin Skrzynecki and Piotr Grudzien they once again fought back from 2-0 down to take the doubles 12-10 in the fifth and Shilton rounded off a successful tournament with an emphatic 3-0 victory against Skrzynecki.

“I’m really happy to have won gold,” said Shilton.

"It was great to do it with Aaron and to continue our doubles form from Slovenia. I felt that it was a bit of a revenge win beating Ledoux as I was devastated when I lost to him in the final of the singles. I think my ball placement was better today and this allowed me to play the shots I needed to win the match. This tournament has been a breakthrough for me – after beating Emil (Andersson) in the singles yesterday it gave me a lot of confidence and I really believed in my ability from that point on. I am really excited now for my next competition.”