By Neto Baptiste
Antigua and Barbuda’s professional tennis player, Jody Maginley, has won his second M25 Doubles Title in the space of two weeks after he and partner Joshua Sheehy (USA), won the M25 Sharm El Sheikh Doubles main draw in Egypt on Sunday.
The pair joined forces to beat Great Britain’s Adam Jones and David Quayle in straight sets 6-3, 7-6 (6) at SOHO Square.
Maginley credits his growing confidence and a stick-to-it attitude for his recent successes.
“I actually don’t know how much better I am actually playing than before because I think I’ve had a lot of close matches in doubles with some very good teams in the past, but I think the difference is that I am a lot more confident and I believe a lot more in the process. I believe that if I keep doing the right things in these tough moments that I will come out on top,” he said.
“For example, in the final we were down 6-3 in the tie break in the second set, and we came back and won 8-6, and those are the kind of things that in the past I’d feel stressed and like I need to overplay, but now I just feel like all we need to do is stick to it,” he added.
Maginley had recently teamed up with Canadian Juan Carlos Aguilar to win the M25 Madrid Tennis Championships held in Spain. The duo defeated the Spain pair of Jorge Plans and Bruno Navarro by 6-4, 6-3 margins.
The Antiguan had previously won a M15 professional tournament held in Pittsburgh, USA in July. He’d teamed up with Barbados’ Darian King to take that title.
He said his hard work is bearing fruit.
“It’s my first time winning three features in a year, so I am obviously having a good run. I think the difference is that I’ve kind of altered the way I train because now I am focusing more on doubles, so I’ve put in a lot more doubles sessions, before obviously, singles was my priority, but I feel like now I’ve reached a stage in my career where I have a really good opportunity to give doubles a go, and it’s paying off already,” the player said.
Maginley will now turn his attention to an M15 tournament also to be held in Egypt starting this week.
