Cantley’s Alfie Hewett goes to Belgium this week aiming to defend the men’s singles and doubles titles he won at the ITF Futures events in Lebbeke in 2012 after collecting trophies in back-to-back- wheelchair tennis tournaments in Europe over the last two weeks.
Hewett won the men’s doubles at the Wroclaw Cup in Poland two weeks ago and followed up by winning the men’s consolation singles at the Trofeo della Mole in Turin, Italy last week, as his bid for successive doubles titles with fellow Brit Marc McCarroll came to an end in the semi-finals.
Hewett and McCarroll had produced a tremendous performance in Poland, beating top seeds Frederic Cattaneo of France and Martin Legner of Austria 7-5, 6-2 in the semi-finals and defeating the second seeds, Britain’s David Phillipson and Adam Kellerman of Australia, 6-2, 6-4 in the final to win their second tournament together this year.
Hewett and McCarroll again had Phillipson on the other side of the net in their semi-final in Turin as all three players from the Tennis Foundation’s Wheelchair Tennis Performance Programme vied for a place in a second doubles final, but this time Phillipson and his Polish partner Tadeusz Kruszelnicki just had the edge as they clinched a deciding super tie-break for a 7-6(1), 1-6, (10-8).
While Hewett has improved his career best men’s doubles ranking to No. 23 this week, the world No. 1 ranked junior remains at his career best men’s singles ranking of No. 25 that he first achieved in Ma, after winning the men’s consolation event at the Trofeo della Mole.
A week after bowing out of the Wroclaw Cup to Dutch second seed Tom Egberink in the quarter-finals, Hewett found the powerful Frenchman David Dalmasso too strong for him in the opening round of the men’s singles in Turin. However, 15-year-old Hewett went on to drop just one game in two matches en route to the consolation final and then beat Korea’s Ji-Hwan Lee 5-4(8), 4-1 in a match played out in two short sets to add another trophy to his ever-growing collection.
“It’s nice to end the last two weeks on a winning note heading into my title defences in Belgium,” said Hewett. “Both the players that beat me in the singles events in Poland and Italy are very good players and big, strong players, so there’s plenty I can learn from playing them. Me and Marc were thrilled with our doubles title in Poland and two titles from three tournaments together this season is pretty good, so I can go to this week’s Belgium 25 event feeling pretty confident.”