'I don't believe there's a person on this planet who's put more hours in over those nine years' - Thomson
- killshotgloves
- 6 days ago
- 7 min read
Paul Fitzpatrick sat down with Team Kill Shot's Luke Thomson at the recent Belgium Open to discuss his major double triumph in Las Vegas and his breakthrough on the American scene.
Paul Fitzpatrick: A European player going to the States, beating top players, winning an open tournament. It's unbelievable. So to start off, what were your emotions after that?
Luke Thomson: Yeah, I mean, I was really ecstatic. I'll be honest, I wasn't expecting to go in and win both, for sure. I probably wasn't expecting to win either. It's not something that's been done by a European before. I've played in a lot of these European events and I've played in a lot of the American events as a European. I won the Campbell Classic playing with Tywan a few years ago. But I think this, in terms of the level of player, was really high. It all came together, it all clicked, and yeah, afterwards I was definitely... I think I'm still riding the high, to be honest.
PF: Where did that performance come from? Did you feel it was in you? Do you know how, in handball, you sometimes just don't know until you get there how you're going to play?
LT: Yeah, absolutely. And it was a really weird one because the jet lag is really tough, that was one of the biggest things. There's an eight-hour time difference between the UK and Vegas, and some of these games are happening at three in the afternoon; I was playing my second-round game and that's 11pm at home.
Some of the games are at 8pm, which is four in the morning at home, so there are all of these other things that you have to deal with. So yeah, it's a good question. Obviously I'd been training hard, I was ready to go. We had the Spanish Open earlier in the month, end of September, and I thought I played well in that and I thought I should have won it. So I knew I'd be ready.
We had a good Buddha tournament on the new Coney Island Next Generation, as it's called now, and I played with Dan Pitre when I was out there. So I felt in a good vein of form, felt like I'd been playing well and was ready. The other thing to note is those walls were wooden walls, which we're more used to in Europe, and the flooring wasn’t a concrete floor. So, weirdly, we were playing in an American time zone, which favoured the Americans, but on a court that was probably slightly more European than American. And you suddenly see the difference, kind of like that advantage swung my way a little bit.
PF: You've put in the hard yards going to the States. To elevate your game you have to go over there, you have to enter these top tournaments in New York in particular. You know you're probably going to have to take some beatings along the way, but you've got to get your level up. And now it's paid off.
LT: Yeah, absolutely. And this is where you do have to put your pride to one side. I made the semi-finals of the US Open a few years ago, which was probably my other really exceptional achievement. And I lost to Tavo, I lost 21-0. Then I played him again in an exhibition game that I wanted to play him in, and we organised it, and I lost 21-2. So I've played him for 42 points over the last three years and I've won two to his 42.
But that is playing against the top player in the world, who hits the ball in a way that no-one else can and moves like the best athlete in handball, with a left like the best left and a right like the best right, and who can whip it, kill it, drive it, and hit it as hard as anybody else, with a great serve. He's almost a complete player. Really tough. But you have to put yourself up against that. You have to leave your pride at the door and sometimes you are going to get beaten but I think you need to go through that.
There are a lot of top Europeans who, on their day, can beat a really good American player but you need that constant repetition t
To win that tournament I had to beat Timbo, who's obviously one of the best players of al time, then I had to beat Thor who's a really good A player and really tough and then I had to beat Dan Pitre in the final. That's three top A’s, back to back, and you have to win all of them in straight knock-outs, so there's no second chance.
And similarly in the doubles, there were some amazing doubles pairs in that tournament, and every single round we were playing against top players. I think the easiest round - on paper - was Brian and Andres Paz, two of the top B players in New York, brilliant doubles players. If they came to the European Opens, they'd be a super threat to every team in the competition and have a good chance of winning it. And that was the easiest on paper.
It definitely wasn't the easiest game. It's just putting those games back to back and winning them again that's the bit I'm most proud of, because you don't get that unless you've put yourself through it, like you say, and been out there and tested yourself against the best over and over again.
PF: So in terms of your game itself, to get into the specifics, where have you elevated your game? Is it your serve? Are you more consistent? Is it your conditioning? What do you feel is the actual thing that you're better at?
LT: Yeah, so I think two things. My serve is definitely a real weapon against a lot of good players, just because of the variation. I'm not the hardest hitter, I'm never going to beat people with power with my serve, but the way I use my body to hide what I'm going to do and find the corners of the court gives me an advantage.
And then I'm very much a shooter; when I'm on the attack, I shoot. Those fine margins are everything, right, because if you leave it slightly too high and they're quick, they get there. If you're slightly too low, you lose the point. So for me it's been about refining those things.
Over the last two or three years I've changed the swing on my right hand. The first time I ever used that was in a final in Loughmacrory, and I'd been practising for about a month. I was swinging differently with my right.
I remember a few people afterwards came up and said 'so close' or whatever, and I was thinking honestly this tournament for me was just a practice event to get my right right. Then throughout the rest of that season I was on the way to doing it, but I broke my finger in Holland and dislocated it really badly, and that put me back.
I think I've now got to the point where all of that hard work to change the swing at least enables me to generate power and lob the ball in a more consistent way. I can still use my old swing when I want to attack, but it gives me a more defensive swing. Those things aren't small, they’re massive, and you can't just change your swing over six months. It takes two or three years for it to come out, and luckily I've had that time in the sport.
PF: What you've done shouldn't be possible. It shouldn't be possible for a player to start in a country without a strong wall ball community and get up to A level. The odds of that are astronomical, I would say.
LT: Yeah. And I'm super proud of it because I didn't start playing wall ball, I had never hit a wall ball, until I was 17. There are probably 25 people at this event today playing in a senior tournament who are younger now than I was before I'd even hit a wall ball. So I didn't come to this sport at a young age. I played Fives, which is similar, so I had a good basis, but I was at Uni from 18 to 23 where I didn't have any courts.
So really, in my mind, I've only properly been playing since I was about 24. I've had nine years of it. But I know I just train more than... I'm pretty confident. Maybe not in pure hours, because some guys in New York can train all day every day, but in terms of purposeful practice, I don't believe there's a person on this planet who's put more hours in over those nine years, the amount of time I've spent on my own on a court refining things, because I can't play matches against the top players because there just aren't enough of them in England.
PF: In a way that feeds into your story, because I always saw you as a very accurate player. You're extremely accurate and crisp in your shots, which is obviously honed by being on the court by yourself, so maybe that suits your style. As you say, you're not going to beat someone with power but with pure accuracy.
LT: Yeah, totally. I think my game is about being technical and smart and trying to exploit the advantages I've got over other people. I'm not slow by any means, but I'm not the quickest, the strongest, the tallest, or the biggest, so I have to find my elite advantage somewhere. And for me that's putting the ball in places other people can't.
PF: And lastly, is there another Luke Thompson in the UK? Is there another top player coming up?
LT: Yeah, it's a good question. There are a couple of young players starting to do really well. You've got Wyman and Toby Chan who are really taking to it. We've just started some junior programmes that are now really starting to excel. Dan Grant, who leads UK 1-Wall, and Matt Shaw and Dan Thackeray are putting in so much time and effort building the sport. I've no doubt the next one will come. How long that is, I don't know. Hopefully sooner rather than later.
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