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Joelle King was beaten by Sarah-Jane Perry in the squash women’s singles bronze medal match.
Joelle King was three points away from winning a squash singles bronze medal at the Commonwealth Games, but ultimately ended up with nothing.
The Kiwi world No 5 won the first two games in her bronze medal match against Sarah-Jane Perry of England and was up 8-4 in the third at the University of Birmingham squash centre on Wednesday.
But she proceeded to lose seven points in a row and after Perry kicked on in the fourth game, they headed to a decisive fifth, where world No 6 Perry prevailed in a tie-break after more than an hour of play to take the match 3-2.
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Kiwi top seed will now play for bronze after a defeat in the semis.
Four years ago on the Gold Coast, these two did battle for gold and silver, with King ultimately prevailing, and even though they were chasing a medal of a different colour here, there was no drop-off in intensity.
King had a chance to close out the match when she was up 10-9 in the deciding game, but couldn’t convert, and let another chance go begging up when she went up 11-10 after a video review went in her favour.
There were plenty of video reviews that didn’t, however, and King was clearly frustrated at times as the match slipped out of her control.
King and Perry collided and hit the deck at the end of a point which left the Kiwi up 9-7 in the fifth, at the end of a long rally which was representative of the hotly-contested back-and-forth final game.
Perry went up 12-11 after denying King on two game balls, then failed to convert one of her own before finishing the job in front of a loud, supportive home crowd.
King wound up in the bronze medal match after losing to Hollie Naughton of Canada in her semifinal on Tuesday.
She also won the first game in that match, 11-7, but collapsed and lost 3-11, 8-11, 1-11 after that.
When she went up two games to nil against Perry, winning 11-6 and 11-9, before …….