British No. 1 Gordon Reid made a winning Grand Slam singles debut at Roland Garros on Wednesday, beating world No. 9 Michael Jeremiasz of France 2-6, 6-4, 7-5 to reach Thursday's semi-finals against either defending champion Stephane Houdet or Gustavo Fernandez.
The Helensburgh player, world ranked No. 6, kept pace with Jeremiasz for the first four games of the opening set at the second Grand Slam of the year before the Frenchman reeled off four games in succession. However, Reid gained an early break to lead the second set 3-1 and maintained his cushion to force the final set.
Reid edged the early exchanges in the decider and led 2-1, before Jeremiasz broke to move ahead 3-2. However, just when it seemed like the match might come down to final set tie-break Reid earned himself two match points before finally sealing the victory.
"I'm delighted to win my first singles match at a Grand Slam," said Reid. "It was quite an up and down match. He had a good start, but luckily I managed to turn it around and played some good tennis. I'm normally never nervous, but I was nervous today and he had a whole crowd behind him, so it was difficult conditions to play in. But once I relaxed I was pleased with the way I played."
Reid, who is making his Grand Slam debut in singles competition after twice playing in the men's doubles at The Championships, Wimbledon, will now face the winner of the quarter-final between French world No. 2 Houdet and Argentina's world No. 4 Fernandez.
In the last month Reid has beaten both players on clay, defeating Houdet for the second time this year to win the Internazionale d'Italia wheelchair tennis event held alongside the Rome Masters, while beating Fernandez a week later to seal fifth place for Great Britain at the 2013 BNP Paribas World Team Cup in Turkey.
After reaching his first Grand Slam singles semi-final Reid partnered Ronald Vink to reach Friday's men's doubles final. Second seeds Reid and Vink led Gustavo Fernandez and Stefan Olsson 5-3 in the second set of their doubles final, but had to withstand a brief comeback from their opponents before finally sealing a 6-1, 7-5 win. Top seeds Houdet and Kunieda will play Jeremiasz and Scheffers in the other semi-final.
Reid was one of two players on the Tennis Foundation's Wheelchair Tennis Performance Programme in action on the first day of wheelchair tennis competition in Paris. World No. 5 Lucy Shuker threatened to cause a big upset in her opening women's singles match after coming from 3-1 down to take the opening set against Dutch world No. 1 Aniek van Koot 6-4. Shuker again fought back from 4-0 down in the third and deciding set, but Australian Open champion van Koot held on for a 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 victory.
And the bad news continued for Shuker as she and Buis missed out on the chance to reach their second successive Grand Slam final together. In a closely fought women's doubles semi-final Shuker and Buis lost out to Sabine Ellerbrock and Sharon Walraven 6-4 7-5.
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