Andy Lapthorne has reached the quad singles final at the Australian Open Wheelchair Tennis Championships, while also finshing runner-up in the quad doubles event.
Lapthorne faced a more difficult challenge against Sweden's Anders Hard in their decisive round-robin match than he had last weekend when beating Hard in straight sets to win the Melbourne Open. However, Lapthorne recovered well from losing the first set to prevail 4-6, 6-3, 6-3 and finish second in the round-robin phase of the competition behind American world No. 1 David Wagner.
The world No. 4 will now face Wagner for the second time this week in Saturday's quad singles final as the Brit bids for his first Grand Slam singles title.
However, after winning his first two Grand Slam doubles titles in the last two years at the Australian Open, partnering fellow Brit Peter Norfolk, Lapthorne had to be content with runners-up honours this year.
Lapthorne and Hard, playing their first tournament together this week in Melbourne, kept pace with three-time Paralympic champions Nick Taylor and Wagner at the start of the final, until the American duo broke serve to move 3-1 ahead en route to taking the first set.
Lapthorne and Hard broke their opponents in the first game of the second set and came back from game points down to level the set at 2-2, but Taylor and Wagner's vast experience as partners eventually told and they regained the Australian Open title 6-2, 6-3.
Meanwhile, In the women's doubles final Lucy Shuker and Marjolein Buis of the Netherlands won a long seventh game to lead 4-3, but Dutch top seeds and Wimbledon champions Jiske Griffioen and Aniek van Koot came back to win the next three games.
Griffioen and van Koot also took the first two games of the second set, but Buis and Shuker, who were only playing their second tournament together, proved resilient and drew level at 3-3. However, once again Griffioen and Van Koot's greater experience won the day and they secured the title 6-4, 6-3.
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