Joshua Card and Ben Crabbe won two exciting singles finals at the Gosling Wheelchair Tennis Development Series in Welwyn Garden City as former Development Series winner Steve Crompton had to settle for runners-up honours in the A Division singles.
Both singles events started with a round-robin group phase, the A Division singles seeing Card and Crompton both wining their respective matches against Marc Francis and Pat Seaward in straight sets and therefore earning their place at the top of the group to progress to the final.
Crompton, winner of the Tennis Foundation Development Series men’s points accumulator in 2012, initially made his experience tell in the opening set of the final, but Card gained the momentum in the second set and went on to force a deciding championship tie-break, which he took to seal a 2-4, 4-1, (10-2) victory.
A six-strong entry for the B Division singles resulted in Crabbe finishing unbeaten in his four round-robin group matches, winning two of them 6-0, beating Martyn Baker 6-4 and also edging past Rob Richardson 7-5.
While their group match had been close, the final proved even closes for Crabbe and Richardson as Richardson forced a tie-break. However, Crabbe again gained the upper hand to prevail 7-6(3).
Card and Sophie Elwes had to retire from the first of their three planned doubles round-robin matches at 3-3 in the opening set against Crabbe and Francis. Although Crabbe and Francis went on to beat Baker and Tracey Proudlock 6-2, they lost out of Crompton and Seaward 6-3 and Crompton and Seaward also recorded a 6-0 win over Baker and Proudlock to win the doubles title.
Gosling Wheelchair Tennis Development Series Final Draws