Gordon Reid clinched the first Grand Slam title of his career on Friday after partnering Japan’s Shingo Kunieda to a straight sets victory in the men’s doubles final at the Roland Garros wheelchair tennis event in Paris.
Meanwhile, there were runners-up honours for another Anglo-Japanese partnership after Jordanne Whiley and Yui Kamiji saw their incredible sequence of five Grand Slam women’s doubles titles brought to an end by Dutch seconds seeds Jiske Griffioen and Aniek van Koot.
Second seeds Reid and Kunieda beat Gustavo Fernandez of Argentina and Nicolas Peifer of France 6-1, 7-6(1) to extend their unbeaten sequence as a doubles partnership after winning their first tournament together at last month’s Japan Open.
“I’m delighted to win my first Grand Slam title, it’s amazing,” said Reid, who was contesting his fifth Grand Slam doubles final and his second since 2013 in Paris. ”I’ve really enjoyed playing with Shingo here. It was a very good match today. The tie-break was tough, but I relaxed into it and hit some really good winners.
“It’s been a tough couple of weeks with winning the World Team Cup in Turkey last week and then coming straight here, but it’s all been worth it and these are the kind of results that help to pay back the support from UK Sport, the National Lottery and the Tennis Foundation and the support I get from Tennis Scotland and the sportscotland Institute of Sport.”
“I’m looking forward to getting back home to Scotland and seeing my family and then the next big tournament will be Wimbledon, where I will play with Michael Jeremiasz,” added Reid.
After an immediate break in the men’s doubles final Reid and Kunieda raced to the opening set and built another 3-1 lead in the second set before having a match point at 5-4 as they attempted to serve out the match. However, they earned themselves five more match points in the tie-break and took the first opportunity to seal victory.
Whiley and Kamiji came from 2-0 down in the opening set of the women’s doubles final to lead 4-3 after earning successive service breaks, but were unable to control the first set tie-break. However, they raced into a 3-0 second set lead and maintained their advantage to take the final to a deciding match tie-break for the second successive year.
The defending champions made another good start to the match tie-break, earning a 5-2 lead, but after missing out to Whiley and Kamiji in the last four Grand Slam finals Griffioen and van Koot recovered to win with a score line that was almost an exact mirror image to that in Paris in 2014.
“We really didn’t want our winning run to end today and we are truly gutted,” said Whiley. “We shouldn’t have lost the way we did in the second set. My serve let me down today, especially at key moments, but neither of us played as well as we could have. The heat was also a factor today, but we’ll be back to defend our title at Wimbledon and I’m really looking forward to playing at my favourite tournament again.”
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