"It is like a dream come true," Valente said, who said "of course" when asked if he could repeat his achievement next year at the Paralympics.

Valente clinched the win at the end of a tight encounter which was level at 2-2 going into the final end, but with the Portuguese ahead and Murray needing to pull off something special, he missed with his final ball, handing victory by two points to the 30 year old, who said he felt incredibly nervous at the end.

"I felt very anxious, as though I was going to have a heart attack!"

For Murray, he was left to reflect on what might have been but looked forward immediately to the Paralympic Games in 2012.

"It was a matter of millimetres but there's not a lot that can be done about that now.

"I thought a couple of my shots had gone close but the referee measured it and I didn't get that little bit of good fortune that I need.

"Hopefully I'll get that in London."

Valente's win came at the end of a hectic Friday as competitors across BC1, BC2, BC3 and BC4 disciplines came together to battle for a place at the London 2012 Paralympic Games.

Murray, who came through a huge elimination round match with the Portuguese Fernando Ferreira on a run off, defeated Zhiqiang Yan of China in the quarter finals 5-2 to set up a clash with Ireland's Roberta Connolly, whose passionate fans roared her into the last four.

She came through a tough test against Hong Kong's Hiu Lam Yeung, but against Murray her boisterous fans were silenced as he roared into a commanding 3-0 lead after the first end.

Connolly had no answer to Murray's accurate throws in the second end as he stretched his lead to five points, leaving the Irishwoman with a mountain to climb.

She battled hard to reduce the arrears as she came into the game with a 2-0 win in the third end, and though she also won the fourth, she only did so by a point, meaning that Murray advanced to the final.

Valente's path to the final saw him face So Yeong Jeong of South Korea, who he overcame 6-2, before defeating the Brazilian Santos Maciel 5-3.

In the quarter-finals, Britain's David Smith put António Marques to the sword with a 5-1 win, and set up a semi final with Chinawoman Qi Zhang, who had impressively put out the Thai challenger Tadtong Pattaya 4-3.

World number one Smith fell at the last four stage to Zhang, who raced into a 4-0 lead, before the arrears were reduced to two in the third and penultimate end.

In the final end, Zhang had Smith on the ropes but the Brit produced a superb shot to put his ball closest to the jack with one shot remaining.

However his final shot wasn't good enough and failed to get close to the jack, leaving Zhang with the simple task of throwing her final three balls far away from the jack, safe in the knowledge that there was no way back for Smith, even if he did win the final end 1-0.

Zhang though was agonisingly defeated in the final by South Korea's Kwang Min Ji by a single point after a nailbiting final end with the scores poised at 2-2.

In the BC3 South Korea dominated, taking all three medals as Ho Won Jeong beat Ye Jin Choi 4-1.

Han Soo Kim beat the Greek competitor Grigorios Polychronidis 8-2.

And in the BC4 category, Brazilian Dos Santos Eliseu clinched a 3-2 win over Canadian Marco Dispaltro, whilst Domingos Vieira of Portugal claimed bronze with a 4-1 success.

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


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