Bingham’s David Phillipson won three of his four matches as Great Britain justified their fifth seeding in the elite men’s World Group of 12 nations at the BNP Paribas World Team Cup, in Seoul, Republic of Korea, which ended at the weekend.
Phillipson started wheelchair tennis’s annual Davis Cup-style competition precariously as he dropped the first set of Britain’s opening tie group tie against the host nation, but would not be denied and powered through the next two sets to beat the Republic of Korea’s Sang-Ho Oh 4-6, 6-0, 6-1 en route to Britain securing a 3-0 victory.
Britain’s second of two round-robin group contests was altogether more difficult against second seeds and eventual World Team Cup champions France and Phillipson lost his singles rubber to world No. 4 Nicolas Peifer as France secured a 3-0 victory.
However, Phillipson produced a solid performance in the first of two play-offs contests and beat American Jon Rydberg 6-3, 6-4 before partnering Alex Jewitt to a 6-1, 6-2 victory over Steve Baldwin and Noah Yablong to seal Great Britain’s 3-0 win over the USA, earning one final contest against sixth seeds Argentina.Phillipson subsequently celebrated with team mates Jewitt, Marc McCarroll and Gordon Reid after McCarroll and Reid wrapped up a 2-0 win over Argentina to clinch Great Britain’s fifth place.
“We’re over the moon to come here and live up to our seeding after the disappointment of finishing seventh last year and after some tough draws,” said Phillipson. “Our contest against France was always going to be tough, but we didn’t produce out best performance on the day either. However, we can end the week saying that our only loss came against the World Team Cup champions, so we have to be pretty satisfied with that.”