Lucy Shuker has reached her second Australian Open doubles final as she recorded a straight sets wins with Dutch partner Marjolein Buis at Melbourne Park.
Second seeds Shuker and Buis came from 3-2 down in the opening set of their semi-final against Sabine Ellerbrock of Germany and Sharon Walraven of the Netherlands before finally making a string of set points count and took what proved to be a decisive 5-3 lead in the second set en route to wrapping up a 7-5, 6-3 victory.
Shuker and Buis will face Dutch top seeds and Wimbledon champions Jiske Griffioen and Aniek van Koot in Friday's final as Shuker, also a former finalist at Wimbledon, bids for her first Grand Slam title.
Shuker's doubles semi-final victory brought some recompense for her earlier women's singles semi-final loss to world No. 4 Ellerbrock. Despite Shuker putting up a great effort in her first Australian Open semi-final, Ellerbrock eventually edged to a 7-6(1), 7-5 victory.
Andy Lapthorne faces a crucial final round robin-robin match on Friday in Melbourne if he is to reach his second Grand Slam quad singles final after a tremendous comeback by the Brit ended in a narrow loss to American world No. 1 David Wagner
World No. 4 Lapthorne came back from 4-0 down against world No. 1 David Wagner to level the opening set of their match at 5-5 before Wagner eventually snatched the set 7-5. However, Lapthorne raced through the second set and pushed Wagner close in the decider before the American eventually clinched a 7-5, 1-6, 6-4 victory.
With Lapthorne having beaten American Nick Taylor in his opening match on Wednesday and Taylor having subsequently beaten Sweden's world No. 5 Hard, Lapthorne will now face Hard in his final round-robin match, having beaten the Swedish player in a similar scenario last weekend to win the Melbourne Open title.
View the wheelchair tennis draw here.
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