David McBeath und Matt Ware sowie deren englischer Trainer hatten Ricardo Walther nach England eingeladen. Abschluss einer gemeinsamen Trainings- woche war schließlich das Grand-Prix-Turnier in London.
Im Herren-Einzel gelang Ricardo zunächst mit fünf glatten Siegen der Einzug in das Viertelfinale. Dort besiegte er in einem tollen Fünfsatzspiel Gavin Rumgay, den an Nr.4 gesetzten Schotten.
Nach diesem Erfolg über die Nr. 224 der Weltrangliste bezwang Ricardo im Halbfinale auch noch den an Nr.1 gesetzten Artur Daniel (Polen). Im Finale unterlag er dann aber Victorien Le Guen (Frankreich) in einem offensichtlich begeisternden Spiel, wie der Auszug aus dem offiziellen Turnierbericht erahnen lässt:
In the first end, the German ruled like a dictator with his ability to change the return of service with immense spin. As he started to understand how to deal with his opponents presence, the Frenchman resisted, by creating the opportunity to powerfully attack Walther’s backhand and middle part of his body due to his lightning speed around the table, this giving the French player a 2 to 1 game lead. Ricardo had to give everything he possessed in his arsenal of shots in the fourth set to live with the sheer pressure he was under, with some amazing loop to loop rallies and some explosive forehand counters as he managed to pull back to level it up at 2 games apiece. At this stage it could be anyone’s title however the Frenchman just had too much “je ne sais quoi” in the fifth end to halt the German invasion on the London Open title and La France victory was secured in front of a packed and spellbound neutral audience. C’est magnifique!