National Doubles Championship for the Cyriax Cup
Alleyn’s School, Dulwich
Saturday/Sunday 11-12 April 2026
STOP PRESS In this centenary edition of the National Doubles Championship defending champions Ed Kay and Dan Tristao made it four in a row and five titles in all in beating a new combination, Ollie Arnold and Charlie Brooks, in the closely fought final.
In the equally competitive Plate a pairing consisting of 6-time National Singles champion James Toop and twice National Schools Champion Gwydion Wiseman emerged as winners in a final played against Julian Aquilina and James Tilston.
Hamish Buchanan reports: It is doubtful that the first final of the Cyriax Cup in 1926 matched the excitement or the nail-biting finish witnessed with this year’s centenary spectacle. Three-game finals are rare but 14-14 tie breaks in the decider are unheard of, certainly not in the living memory of the game’s statisticians.
Victory was claimed by the defending champions and now five-time winners Dan Tristao and Ed Kay, but the match was anything but easy. The challengers, Charlie Brooks and Ollie Arnold, making their first appearance as a pair in the Cup, started the final with an avalanche of destructive hitting and continual pressure; they pressed on from 3-3 to 11-3 in under 10 minutes and finished the first game 15-6 after 24 minutes. Everything looked simple for them and the defending champs had some serious thinking to do. On the back foot for most of the game with some scrambled defence and no apparent way to apply pressure, how could they stop the destructive power from Ollie on the left and the variations with precision from Charlie on the right?
Game two and angles
In the first game both Ollie and Charlie created pressure by hitting the ball hard into the angle on the opposite side of the court, bringing it back diagonally through the middle of the court at pace and causing difficulty and confusion to Dan and Ed, who struggled to work out who should be covering these shots and then what was the most effective defence. In game two Dan and Ed took the initiative and hit hard cross-court shots, with the ball striking either the left or right wall first before hitting the front wall and finding the nick on the opposite side. They played these shots at every opportunity and dragged either Charlie or Ollie, and sometimes both, forwards to retrieve. This left gaps in behind the advanced player which Dan and Ed could exploit; also, as the ball inevitably slowed, the power of Charlie and Ollie diminished and the hard hit angles were more easily defended. From 7-5 up Dan and Ed slowly extended their lead to13-7 before Ollie and Charlie stemmed the tide, claiming a couple more points before losing to 9. Had they done enough to reclaim the momentum going into the decider?
Game three and the title in the balance
After seven rallies Charlie and Ollie were 4-1 up, five more and it was 4-4 and so it continued: twelve more rallies and the defending champions had wrestled a 7-6 lead, but then Ed had a mini-meltdown, the next seven rallies ending with him making five errors and two winners, leaving his team 10-7 down. The tension began to bite on both pairs, and with Charlie and Ollie making mistakes we were soon back to parity at 10-10. There were then several changes of hand before the challengers eked out a 13-11 lead, with Dan now serving second hand to Ollie.
Up to now in the third game Dan had struck nine winners with just two errors, keeping his team in touch with the challengers. Many of these winners were rather unexpected left hand cross-courts, an uncharacteristic shot for Dan, displaying an inventive and almost desperate bid to keep alive their defence of the title. It therefore stunned everyone as he served into the bar to give Ollie and Charlie championship point. Perhaps even the strongest minds can scramble in such moments. Ed stepped up and served hard across the court, found the ‘nick’ but not a dead one; Ollie made the shot, aiming hard back at the server, the ball clipped the top of the bar, match point gone.
It’s not easy to see an opportunity slip and continue to hold your concentration and inevitably Ollie then made a couple more errors before regrouping with a winner. This was followed by one from Charlie and they were back in at 14-13 championship point with a second chance. A winner from Ed in the next rally took it to the second hand, with Dan serving to Charlie. As Dan served short Charlie retrieved and the rally began but within a few shots Dan was impeded whilst playing his shot and a let was played. Again Dan aimed for the short sidewall nick, with the same result of Charlie getting the ball into play This time the rally had barely started before two or three players collided on the right, which resulted in another let. Both were pretty unavoidable and were just the result of some tired players in an extremely tense situation. The tension was also spreading to the gallery where some wondered if the challengers’ opportunity had gone. A third serve and this time Dan found the dead nick, match point saved for the third time. The champions were now receiving, and with an error from Charlie and a winner from Ed the tables were turned — their first championship point at 15-14. Ollie served to Ed, a short rally ensued before Ollie clipped the bar and it was over. Handshakes all round and a long time spent on court with congratulations, commiserations and dissection of play before players left the court to the applause of the gallery. The 100th anniversary final certainly delivered.
The day before witnessed some intense shuffling of the pack as to who might challenge the finalists. Third seeds Aquilina & Tilston and fourth seeds Low & McCreath came under some serious pressure from Wiseman G & Toop and new pair Murby & Parker. With four groups of three in the preliminary round delivering the top two from each group to the quarter-finals, these four pairs became entwined in an almost Gordian scenario to see who would make it to the semi-finals and in which half of the draw would they play. Archie and Cam squeezed past Gwydion and James while Theo and Richie steadily beat James and Julian. In the quarter-finals Archie and Cam were much too solid for a rather underprepared James and Julian, whereas Theo and Richie eventually came through in a very close and somewhat haphazard three-gamer with Gwydion and James.
In the first semi-final Theo and Richie had clearly not taken advantage of the wonderful catering provided and ran out of gas against Charlie and Ollie. In the second Archie and Cam had an impressive middle part of the second game where they matched the defending champions, but nowhere near enough to cause an upset. For many players the shot quality and retrieval skills are in place but the ability to maintain them consistently for an entire match is a struggle; Archie and Cam are at this stage and it will be interesting to see if they can challenge in the future.
The Plate began with a group of the four third-places in the provisional stage. After two rounds all four pairs had won one and lost one, all was to play for in the final round. Ben Chua & John Minta topped the group, with Stuart Scott & Patrick Harrison coming second. These two then played against the last teams standing from the losing quarter-finals, namely Toop & Wiseman and Aquilina &Tilston. The matches were close but the quarter-finalists edged through, leaving another match combination of the earlier ‘Gordian’ group. A one-to-fifteen final meant tiredness played its part as all four players failed to inject any decisiveness into the play, that is until they both made double figures, whereupon the intensity increased and James and Gwydion won their second Plate in the last three years.
Many thanks to Alleyn’s School for the use of their courts and to Gloves&Balls for the special edition 100th anniversary balls.
So, who’s up for the start of the second century of tournament Fives in 2027?
Group Stage
Group A: 1st E Kay & D Tristao w2 +24pts; 2nd T Hebblethwaite & T Maconie W1 -3pts; 3rd P Harrison & S Scott W0 -21pts
Group B: 1st O Arnold & C Brooks W2 +28pts; 2nd K Diggins & T McElvaney W1 -10pts; 3rd Al Goodwin & Y Negyal W0 -18pts
Group C: 1st R Murby & T Parker W2 +17pts; 2nd J Aquilina & J Tilston W1 -1pt: 3rd E Carr & R Sulkin W0 -16pts
Group D: 1st C Low & A McCreath W2 +13pts; 2nd J Toop & G Wiseman W1 +11pts; 3rd B Chua & J Minta W0 -24pts
Knock-out
Quarter-finals: Kay & Tristao bt Diggins & McElvaney 15-3, 15-7; Low & McCreath bt Aquilina & Tilston 15-8, 15-12; Murby & Parker bt Toop & Wiseman 16-15, 9-15, 15-10; Arnold & Brooks bt Hebblethwaite & Maconie 15-0, 15-3
Semi-finals: Kay & Tristao bt Low & McCreath 15-2, 15-9; Arnold & Brooks bt Murby & Parker 15-2, 15-8
Final: Kay & Tristao bt Arnold & Brooks 6-15, 15-9, 16-14
Plate
Group stage: 1st Chua & Minta; 2nd Harrison & Scott; 3rd Carr & Sulkin; 4th Goodwin & Negyal
Semi-finals: Aquilina & Tilston bt Harrison & Scott 15-12; Toop & Wiseman bt Chua & Minta 15-13
Final: Toop & Wiseman bt Aquilina & Tilston 15-11