Matt Johnstone and Charlotte Fairbank won the men’s and women’s singles at the 2015 Taunton Wheelchair Tennis Tournament, the second of the Tennis Foundation’s Development Series events in 2015.
Johnstone claimed a spectacular local win in the men’s singles against much more experienced players, especially after the Taunton Tennis Centre player came from a set down to win a match tie-break in his first two contests of the weekend.
The eventual champion beat Geoff Ellis 1-6, 6-3, (10-1) before also coming from behind to win another match tie-break against Lancashire’s Shahzad Afzal to earn a place in the men’s singles semi-finals alongside Bristol top seed Steve Metcalfe, second seed Steve Crompton, a former winner of the Development Series points accumulator in 2012, and Antony Evans.
Johnstone went on to beat Hampshire’s Crompton 6-1, 6-3 in the last four, with Metcalfe defeating Evans 6-3, 6-1. Johnstone turned in another confident performance in the final, sealing the title with a 6-3, 6-2 win over Metcalfe, the 2011 and 2014 champion and 2012 runner-up at the Taunton tournament.
With 13 players contesting the men’s singles, the women’s singles was decided in a five way-round-robin competition over the two days of action, Fairbank and Andrea Weston both completing their four matches with three wins apiece.
Fairbank’s only loss during the weekend came in a match tie-break against Sonia Hooper, who dug deep to clinch their head-to-head 4-1, 2-4, (10-6), but that was one of just two wins in four matches for Hooper.
With Weston gaining a 5-3, 4-2 victory over Sarah Gaisford, the winner of the women’s singles at the 2014 National Development Series finals last December, her other two victories came without dropping a single game. However, it was Weston’s head-to-head with Fairbank that was to prove crucial, Fairbank earning a comfortable 4-0, 4-1 victory that clinched the title for her.
As there were five women and 13 men in the respective singles events, Fairbank played in the men’s doubles to even the numbers, but her and Johnstone’s hopes of adding doubles success to their singles victories both ended in the first round.
Ultimately it was the more experienced partnerships of top seeds Paul Arnold and Metcalfe and second seeds Afzal and Crompton that progressed to the final, with Afzal and Crompton beating Arnold and Mercalfe 6-2 to win the title after dropping just four games throughout their three matches.
The women’s doubles was a straight final, with Gaisford and Weston coming out on top after a dominant performance that saw them beat Hooper and Wendy Tighe 6-2, 6-0.
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