01/12/14
British players won a total of four titles at the Prague Cup Czech Indoor, the final ITF 2 Series event of 2014, with Lucy Shuker winning the women’s singles, Louise Hunt winning the women’s doubles with Germany’s Katharina Kruger, Alfie Hewett winning the men’s doubles with Frenchman Michael Jeremiasz and Dermot Bailey coming out on top in the men’s second draw singles.
British No. 1, world No. 10 and second seed dropped just seven games in three matches to reach the women’s singles final against Kruger after top seed Kruger had beaten British No. 3 and third seed Hunt 4-6, 6-2, 6-1 in the semi-finals. Shuker went on to defeat world No. 9 Kruger 6-3, 6-1 to clinch her second singles title of 2014.
Hunt and Kruger, recently runners-up in the Doubles Masters in California, reached the women’s doubles final in Prague for the loss of just four games and the top seeds went on to win the final against Italy’s Marianna Lauro and Christine Schoenn of France 6-1, 6-2
Sixteen-year-old third seed Hewett reached the last eight of the men’s singles without dropping a game, but despite a fine effort against former world No. 1 ranked Frenchman Michael Jeremiasz, Hewett was edge dout 7-5, 7-5.
However, Hewett and Jeremiasz proved unstoppable in the men’s doubles as the third seeds beat the second seeds, Frederic Cattaneo of France and Martin Legner of Austria, 6-0, 6-3 in the semi-finals before upsetting the top seeded Dutch-Japanese partnership of Tom Egberink and Satoshi Saida 6-1, 6-2 in the final.
Unseeded for the men’s second draw singles, Bailey beat top seed Jerzy Kulik in the quarter-finals and Kulik’s fellow Pole Maksimilian Szary 6-0, 6-1 in the semi-finals and went on to seal the title by defeating Korean fourth seed Ho Won Im 6-2, 6-1 to more than make up for Bailey and Im going out in the first round of the men’s doubles.