Britain’s Andrew Lapthorne won his first Super Series title as he partnered Sweden's Johan Andersson to victory in the quads doubles final at the 21st British Open Wheelchair Tennis Championships in Notttingham.
In the final the pair took on the top seeds Sarah Hunter of Canada and David Wagner of the United States and made a promising start, dropping only the fourth game before securing the opening set in 13 minutes against the top seeds.
However, Hunter and Wagner raced through the second set without reply before taking the opening three games in the deciding set.
Lapthorne and Andersson were not to be disheartened though and recovered impressively to string a run of six successive games to clinch a remarkable 6-1, 0-6, 6-3 victory and add to the Swedish world No.3 Andersson’s quads singles victory over Wagner on Saturday.
“Right now I’m a bit speechless,” said Lapthorne. “The first two sets seemed to whizz by and I think they were waiting for us to rediscover our form in the final set, which thankfully we did. Once we got back to 3-3 I was pretty confident we had them and we never looked back,” added the Briton, who had lost to Wagner in a close quad singles quarter-final earlier in the week.
Another British victory in the women’s doubles final proved elusive for British No.1 Lucy Shuker and her partner Florence Alix-Gravellier of France as they took on top seeds Aniek van Koot of the Netherlands and Belgium’s Aniek van Koot.
Sevenans and van Koot secured an immediate break before Alix-Gravellier and Shuker came back to level the contest at 3-3. However, the Belgian-Dutch partnership went on to clinch another break to take the first set.
Alix-Gravellier and Shuker secured a double break of their own in the second set on their way to force a final set. However, with Alix-Gravellier due to retire from competitive tennis later this year, a dream end to what is likely to be her last British Open proved beyond her and Shuker as Sevenans and van Koot wrapped up a 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 victory.
Meanwhile world No. 4 Maikel Scheffers won the first Super Series men’s singles title of his career on Sunday with a 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 win against Ronald Vink.
“It’s my first Super Series and it’s been a long-time coming, but now I’ve got it I’m very happy,” said Scheffers, a regular hitting partner for his compatriot and women’s world No.1 Esther Vergeer, who won her 10th British Open women’s singles title on Saturday.
“I’ve never even got to the semi-finals at the British Open before so this is really great. It was a good match and it’s always hard playing Ronald as we know each other so well.”
World No 1 Esther Vergeer of the Netherlands clinched her 10th British Open women's singles title on Saturday after a 6-1, 6-4 victory over her compatriot and fourth seed Jiske Griffioen. Top seeds Stephane Houdet of France and Satoshi Saida of Japan won the men's main draw doubles title.
Seven of the world’s top 10 men, six of the world’s top 10 women and seven of the world’s top 10 quad division players have been among a field of 100 entrants for the 21st British Open Wheelchair Tennis Championships.
The tournament also included a visit from Mandeville, the mascot for the London 2012 Paralympics, who met players and spectators and greeted winners and runners-up throughout the first of two days of finals.
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