Nicol wins historic third title

Peter Nicol defeated Australia's David Palmer in the final of the Halifax Equitable Super Series Squash Finals at London's Broadgate Arena.  

In doing so, the 28-year-old Englishman became the first player in the history of the event to win three consecutive Super Series Finals titles.

After winning the first two games of a high-quality match, Nicol had to battle hard as the young Australian staged a brilliant comeback.

Palmer took the third game 15-13 and threatened a repeat of his semi-final performance in which he clawed his way back from two games down to defeat the world number one Jonathon Power.

However Nicol, the top seed, proved too strong in the fourth, producing some stunning stroke-play to edge out the world number three and take the match 15-7 15-11 13-15 17-14 in 82-minutes.

Both players received a three-minute standing ovation from the capacity crowd.

Earlier in the evening, Canada's world number one Jonathon Power defeated Scotland's Martin Heath to take victory in the third place play-off.

The 26-year-old took just 22 minutes to win the best-of-three match by two games to nil 15-10 15-13.