Alfie Hewett completed a successful double defence of his boys' singles and doubles title at the Cruyff Foundation Junior Masters on Sunday after defeating Carlos Anker of the Netherlands 6-0, 6-2 in the singles final in Tarbes, France.
After beating Anker 6-0, 6-0 when they met in the third of their three round-robin matches in the group phase of the competition on Friday, Hewett made another confident start to the final, holding his own service game to love in the opening game before building a commanding 4-0 lead.
Anker had his first game points of the match in the fifth, but doubles faults cost him dearly and Hewett went on to wrap up the opening set in just 19 minutes.
The second set started with some closer exchanges and Anker got his first game of the match on the board to trail 2-1 but Hewett was soon back in command. After creating two match points Hewett put in two double faults as both disappeared, but the Brit made no mistake on his third match point and closed out victory after 46 minutes.
"It's been another good week here in Tarbes and I did what I had to do today, so I'm very happy to retain my titles," said Hewett. "At 5-1 up I had the match points and at that stage the crowd and the atmosphere was great and I think I just got carried away with it all, but I got myself back on track. Obviously I came here as world No. 1 junior and there are people who watched me here last here, so there's definitely been some pressure to do it again and so I'm pleased that I have."
"After coming back here with Alfie as the defending champion and the world's top ranked junior there has definitely been a lot more pressure on him this week, and he's coped with it admirably," said Ash Smith, the Tennis Foundation's Performance Development Coach. "Last year he was the underdog and there was no pressure on him, but this year he's come to Tarbes with a level of expectation, so to have retained both the singles and doubles titles in the way he has is very impressive."
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