2018 Real Tennis World Championship
Four players were declared eligible to compete:[1] This was the first year that Fahey had participated in the challenge tournament since 1994, as he had held the title of World Champion continuously until 2016.[2] Before commencing the first round eliminator, he won the 2018 Australian Open in Hobart, although this did not count towards the World Race for 2018.Virgona had qualified to be the World Championship challenger on two occasions: first in 2010 in Melbourne and again in 2012 at the Queen's Club, losing both times to Fahey.[5] His best result in the qualification period was as runner-up in the 2017 British Open to world champion Camden Riviere.A week later at the second leg at Prested Hall, despite some tight games and excellent play, Fahey raced through in straight sets to return to the World Championship Challenge.However, since then Riviere had an undefeated record over a four-year period which included winning the World Championship at his then-home club of Newport, Rhode Island in 2016.[14] The match was attended by Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex and marked by Andrew Lyons, the former Queen's Club head professional.Riviere then applied the pressure throughout the remainder of the day, winning back the second set and narrowly gaining the advantage in the third as Fahey tried to hold on.[17] However Fahey fought back hard with a tight and varied serving game and strong power hitting, as Riviere struggled to find momentum from his high-energy style of play.Although it looked like the momentum was with Riviere he was struggling with his serve, which allowed Fahey to capitalise and fight back one last time to win the final two sets and thus the championship.He re-established himself as the second-oldest world champion to Pierre Etchebaster, the match occurring two days prior to his 50th birthday.