Britain’s Jordanne Whiley and Japan’s Yui Kamiji claimed their second Australian Open women’s doubles wheelchair tennis title and their fifth successive Grand Slam crown on Friday at Melbourne Park after defeating second seeds Jiske Griffioen and Aniek van Koot 4-6, 6-4, 7-5.
Meanwhile, fellow Brit Gordon Reid finished runner-up in the men’s doubles partnering Argentina’s Gustavo Fernandez.
Whiley and Kamiji fought back from 2-0 down in the opening set to draw level with the Dutch pairing, but they couldn’t fully retrieve a second break as Griffioen and van Koot took the opener.
However, Whiley and Kamiji broke a sequence of service holds at the end of the second set to take it 6-4 and force a tense decider in which they bounced back from 3-1 down to eventually edge ahead 6-5, before breaking the Dutch serve one last time in a tense finale.
Victory in Melbourne came in three hours and 21 minutes and means that Whiley and Kamiji’s ambitions to secure a second successive calendar year Grand Slam remain intact as they now focus on Roland Garros in June.
“I’m really delighted to win such a tough match, Jiske and Aniek gave us a great game. It’s very pleasing to come back after such a successful year and still be at the top of our game,” said Whiley.
“I would like to thank all my team at the Tennis Foundation, UK Sport and National Lottery funding, Living Tennis, 17 Management and my sponsors who all helped make this win possible. Yui and I have now won five Grand Slams in a row and we look forward to trying to make it six at Roland Garros.”
After beating second seeds Joachim Gerard of Belgium and Maikel Scheffers of the Netherlands in the men’s doubles semi-finals, Reid and Argentina’s Gustavo Fernandez had a tough task in the final against defending champions Stephane Houdet of France and Shingo Kunieda of Japan. Top seeds Houdet and Kunieda, the winners of three of the four Grand Slams together in 2014, retained their title 6-2, 6-1.
“It was a tough one today, we played against a very strong team who don't give away any cheap points,” said Reid. “We had our chances in the match but just didn't take the important points. I'm looking forward to working hard in training when I get home and coming back stronger for the next grand slam in Paris.”
The last day of Australian Open competition involving British wheelchair tennis players started with Andy Lapthorne following up his fourth Australian Open quad doubles title on Thursday by beating the USA’s world No. 1 David Wagner 6-3, 7-5 in his third and final round-robin quad singles.
After losing his opening two singles matches Lapthorne’s hopes of reaching the quad singles final seemed to have gone. But with Lapthorne, Wagner and South Africa’s Lucas Sithole all ending the round-robin phase of the event with one win and two losses, in the end there was only a small margin of games between Lapthorne and place in the final, based on the percentage of games won against games played.
Lapthorne joined forces with Wagner to win their second successive Australian Open quad doubles title together on Thursday.
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